


Another Kind of Love

by charlotteschaos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Character Death, Dark, Dom/sub, Drama, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, Humiliation, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Content, Smut, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-21
Updated: 2006-11-21
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:32:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8190220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotteschaos/pseuds/charlotteschaos
Summary: Draco finds himself on the wrong side of the war and has to fight his way back to himself, finding someone just as broken as he is to love along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Hex Files](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Hex_Files), which was closed for financial and health reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016.

Draco is how Snape imagines his son would be if he'd ever been able to tolerate anyone long enough to procreate. He sits on the counter, not speaking, legs dangling from the edge of the table. A heel banging against the orange sliding drawer in a petulant teen-angst bid for attention, Snape is forced to walk by him and press his forearm to Draco's knee to stop the racket.

The arrival of the petite blond means it's slightly before three o'clock; he always stops by before his guard shift down the hall. Voldemort set up shop in an abandoned schoolhouse in the outskirts of Kent, and the lot of Death Eaters has been given their tasks. Draco wailed in protest of being low on the totem pole as to be a lowly guard, but Snape thought he should be happy to be alive. 

"There isn't even anyone to guard. I'm not sure I see the point of all of this. 'S irritating, is what it is. Just down there staring at bars." He kicked at the shaky panel again to punctuate his point.

This wasn't a new argument; Snape was tired of hearing the complaint. "It's to keep you out of my hair."

"I'm not in your hair; even if I were to 'get into your hair' I'd slide right out of that greasy mess." Draco folded his arms and smirked at Snape who just sighed. 

"The greasy hair jibe is quite old. Consider a fresh approach?" He moved on to where he had cauldrons to tend to and a long plank of wood covered in Bundimun fungus that was giving him a wary look. "Be glad you're not on cleaning detail."

Draco wrinkled his nose and lay on his side across the counter. "At least they get to do something, even if it is boring. But it would probably ruin my manicure. They should put the cleaners in costumes, little French maid uniforms, wouldn't that be ridiculous? I bet I'd look good in one." 

"Don't be silly. You don't have the legs for it." Snape smirked at Draco's pout. "I'm sure even they would protest that there's only so much to dust. But mark my words that they will have plenty to clean up once things start up and hostages are taken. Then you will all long for the time when you could afford to be bored." 

When he looked up, Draco was pulling his robe up to examine his legs. "War is dull."

"If you're that bored, you could harvest the secretions from the Bundimun." Snape pointed to the dull knife used to drag over the fungus. 

At the prospect of actual work, Draco pushed himself off of the counter and started for the door. "I would, but my shift's starting."

"Right." Snape checked the large black and white school clock; it was still well before three, but Draco was darting past the door. "I'll check on your later."

\--

Sitting at the school desk across from the crude iron bar cage in the middle of the room, Draco disinterestedly flipped the page of the latest tome by Professor Vindictus Viridian. It was filled with amusing schoolboy hexes, ones that he'd planned on using against Potter before he'd been called to duty. Now it all seemed terribly silly. 

The idea of seeing Potter behind those bars didn't fill him with as much glee as he thought it would, so he tried picturing Granger or Weasley in there. Somehow, that wasn't much more satisfying, which was vexing. Draco pictured it in silver with Greyback in there screaming from burns from the metal, embarking on a rather satisfying daydream when Snape poked his shoulder. 

"I was about to head to my room."

"Thanks for the update." Draco frowned and glanced at the clock. Six more hours left to sit and do nothing. 

"The vampire delegation is expected tonight." He set a small phial of a milky white mixture in front of Draco.

"I hate this potion. It smells like a sweaty Italian." Having no desire to add exsanguination to his list of complaints for the night, Draco downed it and handed the phial to Snape, making a face at him for having to endure it. "That's almost as horrific as these fluorescent lights."

Snape rolled his eyes. As little as he cared for the lighting, there were far more vexing problems. "Shall I expect you tonight?"

Draco nodded curtly.

"I'll leave the light on for you."

\--

He preferred to think that he wasn't used to sleeping in a room alone rather than that he snuck into Snape's bed for comfort. That hadn't been the original reason he'd shown up in Snape's room. After the bold rescue and narrow escape, Draco had thought himself quite enamored of Snape. Draco didn't know much about the prospect of relations with the same sex aside from convivial boy's dorm room experimentation, but as much as he thought of what attraction should be; he thought himself attracted to Snape.

Any attempted encounter that ended with, "I'm flattered," was beyond humiliating, and yet somehow Draco moved past it. In the days that followed, he reasoned aloud to Snape that he was extraordinarily grateful and only wanted to show that. While neither of them believed that, it was a good enough excuse for them to continue as if nothing had happened. 

In the meantime, Draco jealously regarded anyone else who spoke to Snape, and Snape listened to the tirades with as much patience as he'd endured the pre-escape rants about Potter. Snape had hoped that his comments that he thought of Draco as a son would drive the point home, but much to Snape's alarm, it seemed to goad Draco to greater extremes of possessiveness. 

Exasperating as Draco's behavior was, Snape allowed him to continue to come to his room. Had the other bored Death Eaters any idea how untried and innocent Draco was, he would surely have become sought after and used horribly. As it was, Snape had garnered even more fear and respect for killing Dumbledore and his apparent claim on Draco made him untouchable. 

Snape knew that at some point, either out of lust or necessity, Draco would let someone else know the truth, but for now things worked as they were. He allowed Draco to press his ear to his chest and toyed with his hair until he felt Draco drift to sleep. Then he returned to his slumber.

\--

"What do you mean you were a spy for the Order? You killed Dumbledore." Draco looked more hurt than angry, and somehow, after all of the torture that he'd endured, the betrayed look on his face tormented Snape. 

"Since before the Dark Lord's fall. I managed to convince him that I was still on his side, but... I slipped up. They know you're not involved, you're safe." Snape gripped the bars, watching Draco intently. "But you need to get away from the bars; you can't be caught here talking to me like this."

"What were you doing for the Order now?" Draco didn't move. Snape cursed his impetuous stubbornness and shoved him back. 

Draco wasn't budging, and Snape was desperate. Dumbledore had trusted him and had entrusted this mission to him and died for it. The torch should be passed, if it could be. There was always a chance that Draco was just trying to get more information out of him, but he doubted it. Draco had a lot of guile, but not with him. "Finding out about the Horcruxes and passing the information to the Order of the Phoenix, getting it to Potter to lead him in the right direction."

"Who has the information?" Draco leaned forward, his eyes sparking with interest. 

"Why do you want to know?" 

"I owe them nothing. I owe you everything." Draco caressed Snape's cheek, the first bit of warmth Snape had felt since he'd been dragged out of bed two weeks ago and put through a series of Veritaserum and Legilimency till he broke. 

Whatever information he held was out now; there was nothing more Draco could learn from him. He had to be sincere. The question now was whether he was willing to use a boy's crush to continue his mission. "There were seven Horcruxes that the Dark Lord created in order to contain his soul. Five have been found and I was trying to find information about the final one when I was found out. Now he knows the others have been found and will be creating more to make up for the lack. Unless Potter gets the final one before a proper vessel is found."

Nodding, Draco wiped a stray tear from the corner of his eye. "Who knows where it is?"

"The Dark Lord himself, that's all I know. He plays it close to the vest. He's gotten closer to Dolohov recently, and might have said something to him." Snape added this to the list of things done in the line of duty that he would burn for. It was true enough, since Bellatrix had broken the imprisoned Death Eaters minus Lucius Malfoy from Azkaban; Voldemort had been pouring adulations on the recently freed, seeing their time in as a mark of loyalty. Lucius had been left, as Bellatrix didn't think he had served enough time to be proven truly loyal yet.

"Dolohov." Snape saw the wheels turning and shuddered what the machinations would result in. Though neither of them had spoken of the appraising leers Dolohov had been casting at Draco, it was an unspoken rule that Draco would stick close to Snape when he was around. "And how do I contact the Order if I have information?"

"We used our Patronus." Snape watched Draco's face cloud over; he knew that Draco hadn't had much success in producing one. "They'll be watching for those anyway. I... have no real ideas on how to put you in contact with them other than casting the Morse Lictus, which is the last ditch emergency call for the Order. They'll come running... but you have to have your wand to cast it." 

Nodding, Draco crept back, committing the incantation to memory. He had no idea how to contact the Order, but he would find a way. A moment later, Marcus Flint entered the room to find Draco lazily reading his book. Without a word, he did an about face and headed back down the hall. Draco grinned at Snape and pointed to his book and mouthed, "Warestones-- for spying."

Heaven help him, Snape prayed that Draco and his bag of children's tricks were prepared for this. He hoped that when Draco realized what he'd gotten himself into he could find it in his heart to forgive him.

\--

The next morning, with much pomp and circumstance, all of the Death Eaters were summoned into the room with the jail cell. In the center of it sat Snape, his eyes fixed in a thousand yard stare, ready to face death. Voldemort pushed Draco forward, a test of his loyalty at hand. 

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Draco pointed his wand at Snape. Breaking his distant stare, Snape looked at Draco, willing him to do it, but not uttering a word or changing his expression. Draco narrowed his eyes and spat, "Traitor." Working all of the fury that he could while feeling a sudden empathy for the courage that Snape had to work up to look Dumbledore in the eye and kill him; Draco flicked his wand and said, "Avada Kedavra!" 

The spell skittered against the linoleum, Voldemort's cold, spindly hand having pushed his wand down. "Very good."

Voldemort shoved Draco at Dolohov and repeated the curse and then other words that Draco couldn't make out. He was holding a gleaming silver saucer with a crest on it that included a lion. Draco squinted to read the name "Potter" at the bottom. He watched an eerie blue light travel from Voldemort into the dish as Snape fell lifelessly to the floor. 

Dolohov took the saucer from Voldemort and the two nodded to one another. Draco tried not to look too longingly at the dish and kept his mind completely devoid of all thought. His eyes met his aunt's for a moment before she glared at Dolohov. The other Death Eaters were shuffling out of the room, and Draco was about to follow when he felt a cold hand about his waist and he was wrenched back against a bony frame. "You're mine now, boy."

\--

The saucer sat on Dolohov's nightstand and Draco kept his eyes trained on it while rough hands fondled his arse. He pressed his cheek against the mattress, not daring to look at the skeletal man behind him, or think about the sick way that his skin hung from his bones. Dolohov's fingers were hard with calluses and his nails sharp. This was what Snape was protecting him from, and Draco realized that now... far too late. 

The bed linens smelled like onions and were starched with the sweat of night terrors. Dolohov hadn't left Azkaban all together, and perhaps it was this madness that made the man fascinated with his skin. His scabby hands were all over him, along his back, his thighs, and between his cheeks. His nails scratched down Draco's spine, and he choked back a sob, trying to remember the brave way that Snape met his end, he didn't give in. He was brave to the end. He was what Draco needed to be if he was going to fulfill Snape's mission.

"Snape must've been impotent not to have touched you. He didn't, did he? You are untouched. I can tell by how perfect your skin is, how you clench at my touch." Draco whined as Dolohov forced a wet finger inside of him. He fisted the sheets to brace against the discomfort.

"It's going to hurt if you try to keep me out, boy." Shuddering at the clammy feel of Dolohov's cock pressed against the soft warmth of his cheek, Draco nodded and tried to relax. As a reward, Dolohov leaned over him and bit his shoulder. Draco cried out. "Yes, that's it... scream."

Another finger shoved roughly into him, scraping his insides and Draco's eyes watered. He felt dizzied with repulsion at the man's heaving breath against his cheek. Dolohov trailed his sliming tongue along Draco's ear and he recoiled inward. His eyes fixed on the gleaming saucer again. He would get it to the Order. He would fulfill this mission and would see Dolohov dead. 

Those thoughts left him ill-prepared for his invasion. Draco pressed his face against the bedding and cried out again as he felt Dolohov pushing into him. Instinctively, one of his hands shot back to try to push Dolohov back by his abdomen, but his claws digging into his hips tightened, and Draco knew he was drawing blood. He screamed this time as he felt the hardness of each of Dolohov's thrusts. His skin prickled with sweat and every nerve seemed focused on the pain of each exit and entry. He looked over his shoulder, knowing his face was unguarded with pain and terror. Their eyes met and Dolohov grunted and flopped forward, still moving in and out of him, but slower now. 

"Mine now," he grumbled as he fumbled back, sliding out of Draco. His cock was glossy and wet, streaked with blood.

Draco shook and tried not to think of how empty he felt, or what the wetness sliding down his inner thigh was.

\--

Draco learned to deep throat the next day, lips wrapped around Rabastan Lestrange, pinioned between his cock while Dolohov fucked him. He gagged and spat, several times on the cusp of vomiting. Rabastan would pull back, yanking Draco's face up by the hair. Then he'd slap him and call him a dirty slut, a filthy little cock slut. Draco pictured the ways he would suffer, blood dripping from all of his orifices before he granted Rabastan the mercy of death. 

"Yes sir, sorry sir." His eyes dropped, Draco would open his mouth for another go and his eyes rested on the saucer.

Dolohov slapped his arse, spanking him as he reopened wounds that hadn't had a chance to heal. Draco's stomach turned, but he focused on his goal, on the way Snape died. He would endure. 

"I want to fuck him."

"You're fucking his mouth, he's mine."

They fought over his back, physically wrestling. Springing back from him, they both returned from the floor with their wands drawn on one another. Then they laughed-- sad laughter from sick people. Draco wiped the drool from his mouth. 

"You're never going to share him?"

"I'm sharing him now." Dolohov grabbed Draco's hips and repositioned himself and plowed into him again. Draco looked up at Rabastan and opened his mouth.

"You could give him out as a reward." Draco took him into his mouth, feeling the rawness at the back of his throat, but he'd learned to relax, to not gag.

"He's a good boy, isn't he? I'm going to take him with me for being such a good boy. You're a good boy, aren't you?" Dolohov leaned up to whisper into his ear again. Draco made a quiet noise to indicate he was. He didn't know how he'd find the strength to go with this madman on his quest, but he would do it. He had to.

\--

Having had a few minutes to gather his things, Draco had rushed into Snape's room and found healing salve, at least enough to help him walk, but his muscles still burned from the odd positions he'd been put in. He took it with him, then dashed to the kitchen to find a saucer of comparable size and charmed it silver. 

\--

Dolohov set Draco up under some trees, telling him to rest and that he'd be right back. He headed to a set of hills memorable or mentionable for... some reason. With a flick of his wand, the hill opened, revealing strata and cake-like dirt crumbling. Dolohov entered and the hill encased him. Draco had no idea how long he had, so he stood immediately and cast the spell.

There was an explosion of light in the sky, like a thousand phoenixes had borne into the air and ignited. "Well, he said it would bring them."

What he didn't expect was to see Harry Potter himself, and alone. "Draco?"

An immature instinct to cast a hex came and went as he caught the careworn and hardened look of his face, even if his eyes were soft and wide with wonder. "Snape's dead, they found him out." He grabbed the saucer from his knapsack. "Voldemort's making new Horcruxes, this one was... from... Snape."

Potter looked at the saucer and frowned that it bore his name. But his gaze was back on Draco. "Are you all right?" 

"No." The word escaped before he had a chance to edit his response. He shook his head. "I need a way to contact you."

"You should come with me now. I don't think you should be doing this." Potter grabbed Draco's hand to pull him in for a side-along.

What he got instead surprised both of them. Draco's second kiss-- it's a wonder it wasn't more awkward than it was. His lips parted and his tongue delicately slipped over Harry's before he pulled back. "There's no one else." 

Other members of the Order started to arrive and Draco started to panic. He had no idea when Dolohov would return. 

"Go, I have this," Potter barked to his cronies, and they Disapparated. 

Draco was impressed that Potter had that kind of control of the Order members. 

"Wait one second," said Potter. He Disapparated and Draco stood there bewildered. He kept his eyes trained on the hill and jumped when Potter returned with a quill and a pad. "I have a matched set back at the... where I am. What you write on there, I'll see and I can write back to check up on you. The words won't show up unless you know the password, so should someone else use the pad I won't get the message and they won't see what I said."

Draco took them and clutched the pad and quill to his chest. "What's the password?"

Potter answered, "Scarhead." With a pop, he vanished.

\--

 _Why Scarhead?_ Draco wrote, the first moment he could get alone with the journal.

_Are you all right?_

_No, I'm being tortured to death. I often start idle chitchat whilst in the throes of Crucio._

_Are you sure it's safe?_

_I'm on guard duty with no one to guard. The question vexes me. Why Scarhead?_

_It's just the first thing that came to mind. I guess I thought you'd find it funny._

Draco stared at the pad and frowned. Somehow he'd thought there would be a deeper significance. As if Harry could see he was marked too now. Gryffindors weren't that deep. 

_Are you still there?_

_No,_ Draco scribbled.

_Are you really marked?_

_Yes._

_Did you have a choice?_

_Not really, but I would've taken it anyway._

_Why?_

_I hated you._

There was a long break and Draco thought the conversation was over, but then new words appeared on the page. _Do you still?_

He looked up and around the empty classroom, eyes resting on the stupid cage. In a few hours he'd have to go back to Dolohov's room. He hated Dolohov. He hated Voldemort. Did he hate Potter anymore? 

_I don't know._

_Why are you helping?_

_I hate people here more than you._

_What happened to you? You looked horrible._

_You looked like shit, too. You'd think there was a war on._

_Point. I'm just worried. You should come out of there. We can figure things out on our own. It will get done._

_Ginny's here._

"Scarhead." Draco pushed the pad and quill into his bag along with the warestones that gave him an alert and quick view of who was coming down the hall. Speaking of looking horrible, Ginny appeared wild, her red hair tangled and full of leaves, her face streaked in tears and caked with dirt. Draco recognised the look on her face and then met Dolohov's eyes. He pulled open the door of the cage. His first prisoner of war.

\--

"Why didn't they just kill me?" asked Ginny. 

She sat in the corner of the cell closest to where Draco was. He'd passed her the healing salve for reasons that he couldn't quite fathom in any sense beyond... he knew that pain. He'd given her privacy as she used it and then took it back again. 

"I expect they will," drawled Draco.

Snape was right, having a prisoner was worse. He'd never cared much for Ginny, but he'd never really wished her dead. Sure, he had his childish fantasies about it, but now that he knew what it was like to watch someone die, what life and death meant and what it felt like to really want to take that from them... he didn't want Ginny dead.

She cried and he floated a handkerchief to her. 

\--

He was a good guy now, and as a good guy, he had to pay more attention at dinners, to watch who Voldemort favoured and whom he didn't want anyone to know he favoured. Carrows appeared to be the new golden boy, but it was too obvious. Carrows, like his father, hadn't served time in Azkaban. He was being groomed for taking the fall. Not that Carrows was aware of this, but Draco was fast becoming shrewd in Death Eater politics. 

Carrows wanted to fuck him-- that much was obvious. In the Death Eaters, everyone wanted to be a top, everyone was too afraid to show weakness to bottom because once you'd bottomed, working your way to the top was nearly impossible. The only reason he wasn't spending all of his free time on his back was that most everyone was too afraid of Dolohov to take his toy away. Top of the list of 'fraidy cats was Carrows. 

Dolohov was useful in his own way, but was obviously not trusted with everything. Draco knew from Dolohov that Ginny was to become part of the next Horcrux, as soon as Voldemort got a hold of the next object he wished to hold part of his soul in. As a newly christened good guy, he knew he needed to get Ginny out of there, but escorting her out would blow his cover and it would all be for nothing. The war could go on forever. He simply had to work faster to find the location of the final Horcrux.

His eyes rested on his aunt. She was watching him carefully and he stared back. He felt the press of Bellatrix trying to read him and he smirked. She taught him Occlumency, she should know better than that. Up until now, she'd offered him little other than condolences on his situation. She'd ask if he needed help, but before he answered she'd go into a diatribe about how Dolohov seems better balanced now than he has in years and that "the Dark Lord sees what Draco was doing as a great service." Taking one for the team, quite literally. 

She was far too crazy to be confided in, as was Greyback. He was just turning his attention back to dinner when he felt a hard squeeze on his prick that made him cry out. 

"It doesn't speak well of me that you're eyeballing everyone else at dinner," Dolohov hissed. 

\--

His wrists were chafing at the black leather restraints that held him to the bed. The cockring was a fresh addition to this equation, but Draco was pretty sure it meant something he wasn't going to like. He was caught looking, and looking was bad in Dolohov's world. "No, it's you I want, I'm yours," Draco gasped, trying to catch a breath between the flail that cut strips of sharp pain into his back and the fake cock he was being made to suck. 

No longer did Dolohov trust enough to share him with the others. His obsession was getting darker and heavier-handed. The previous night he'd held his arm around Draco's windpipe till he blacked out, then sobbed at the threat of losing his toy. Each mistreatment drove Dolohov to greater heights of paranoia, which led to more mistreatment. If Ginny didn't die first, Draco was going to. 

Draco gagged on the large dildo being shoved into his mouth by Dolohov. For now the flail was down, but he was pounding hard into him and while Draco was getting used to being stretched like this, the force of the fuck was making him hurt. He could do little other than sob, biting down on the rubberized prick, trying to keep it from choking him until Dolohov finally came and in afterglow reticence, rolled him over so that his arms crossed and toyed with his ringed cock. 

He whimpered and begged to come as Dolohov stroked him and kissed his chest, swearing that one day he'd brand him. Dolohov leaned over and mouthed his prick, devouring it deeply into his mouth. Draco closed his eyes, trying to pretend it was someone else, anyone else. Snape... Potter. His eyelids fluttered as Dolohov broke the hold of the ring. Grabbing Draco by the hair, he slammed his head into the headboard and forced his strict attention on what he was doing until Draco came in his mouth. "See what I do? See what I do for you? I love you," he whispered, releasing one of Draco's arms from the bed. 

Dolohov wrapped his arms tightly around Draco and nuzzled him as he stroked his belly as if they were lovers. "I love you," Dolohov whispered again.

Draco stomach lurched with dizzying nausea.

\--

It was nice having someone to talk to, even if she had no idea why he was being nice to her. Sometimes Draco longed to tell her that it would be all right; that he was watching out for her, but it was too dangerous. If she knew and someone read her... he had no idea what her defenses were. Some nights they didn't talk at all-- she would just cry and he would pretend to read.

"Am I here because they think I'm still with Harry? I'm not. We broke up at Dumbledore's funeral." Ginny had brushed her hair and it gleamed even under the piss-poor school lighting. Draco longed to knock the lights out and replace them all with candles, but he knew that wouldn't have gone over well.

"I didn't know you broke up. I suppose no one here does. Why did it end?" Draco looked at his bag almost longingly. He'd have liked to talk to Potter more, if only because that was someone he didn't need to lie to right now. Honest conversations were rare. 

"He was worried about something like this happening." She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Dating him wasn't worth all of this. I thought we... were meant for each other. I thought he was so brave and noble, but he... ended it with me after... a few weeks of holding hands and kissing. It was cowardly. D'ya think if I told them that, they'd let me go?"

Draco smoothed his hair down and shook his head. "No. Would you tell them that because that was how you felt or because you thought they'd let you out if you said it?"

Ginny pounded the back of her head against the bars. "I don't know. Now I just don't know. I guess at the time I thought I'd do the noble thing and step aside. All that nobility seems pretty silly now."

"If he did it to protect you, then wouldn't that mean he loves you? And if he loves you... you can't discount that no matter how grim things look." Draco felt stupid. What did he know about love other than his childish feelings for Snape and what some psychopath told him? 

"I don't think he loved me. Not any more than he loves everyone in this general sense of wanting to save them. I think he wanted me. We didn't have time for falling in love. Or maybe that's just my excuse for why-- after all that time pining for him-- I didn't." She rubbed her eyes like she was going to cry again, but she pulled it together.

"How do you know you're not in love?" Draco sat on the edge of his seat. He had so many questions about love, he wasn't sure if he'd experienced anything more than an infatuation. Ginny appeared to have experienced an infatuation, but how she knew it was different, he didn't know.

She stared into his eyes and smiled softly. "Because."

\--

Carrows was mostly useless, but as it turned out, he was a good fuck. He didn't like seeing the marks that Dolohov left, so he'd run to an apothecary to get potions and lotions to heal him. He gazed at Draco, and when he slid into him, did it so gently that Draco actually moaned. He was grabby, but when he shifted Draco's hips _just so_ , there was a spot that put pressure on him to come. So much so that Draco actually bothered wanking while he fucked him.

He spoiled him with presents of candy, things that he could hide easily. Carrows bragged that he would find a way to get rid of Dolohov, but Draco wasn't going to hold his breath. Carrows was married, and had too much to lose to take Dolohov on. Maybe he was sincere and just grossly overestimating his worth to Voldemort, it didn't matter. The best gift Carrows gave to Draco, aside from sex that he could actually enjoy at least somewhat, was his gossipy mouth. 

"Flint's moving something important. They've been in meetings all day long. Apparently the Order's found out about some treasure that the Dark Lord has and so things have to be moved." 

Draco feigned boredom and rolled onto his side to pick up another bonbon. "Treasure, hm? Maybe it's a weapon?"

"Could be. Dolohov was furious that it was being entrusted to this kid, I'm afraid you're going to have a hard night, love." Carrows turned onto his side to spoon Draco and caressed his chest. 

"Every night is a hard night with him." 

"I know. I wish I could do something now, it's just too soon." Carrows babbled on about what he thought was important political information. Draco didn't care about Carrows or his promises. They were moving the Horcrux. Someone knew where it was.

\--

_What do you mean that Ginny is there? Draco? Oh God, is she all right? Where are you?_

_Potter, sorry. I haven't had time. She's here still._

_Is she all right?_

_She's alive._

_You need to get out of there._

_Soon._

_What does that mean?_

_It means when I get the information you need, we'll be on your doorstep._

_You're taking too many risks. This isn't just you anymore._

_I was expendable?_

_That's not what I meant and you know it._

_Expect us soon._

_Draco?_

"What are you doing?" Draco stood as Flint entered the room and began disrobing. Ginny skittered to the other side of the cell.

"Gonna relieve some tension 'fore I head out." Flint waggled his brows at Draco and pulled his robe off.

"Not on my watch." Draco narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. "I'm supposed to watch over her."

"So's she don't leave, Malfoy, no one cares if she gets it in her. What, offended I'm the only one not after you?" Flint snorted, Draco rolled his eyes. _You wish_.

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco caught a flash; his warestone had lit up. "I'm going to join you, then."

"Nooo..." Ginny wailed. "Why?" 

She stared at Draco like a traitor. He supposed that was fair. He would probably think the same thing in her position right now.

"All right, Malfoy. Maybe for once you can be on top." Flint slapped Draco's back and Draco pulled his robes off and slipped against Flint. 

"You can do her when I'm done," Flint grunted as he put his meaty hands on Draco's shoulder to push him aside.

"Mine!" Dolohov was crazed. He tore into the room and threw Flint across the room. There was a sick, hollow thud and Draco watched Flint melt to the floor, trailing blood that glistened crimson against the chalkboard. 

Dolohov was dressing Draco between bouts of obsessive blather. Draco whispered, "I didn't want to, he said that you were going to let him because he had a mission. I thought..."

"The mission! Oh God. I have to go without him, then. We'll have to... you'll come with me, won't you? Help me sort it out. We have to move it. It's small, it's not hard to move; it's just that it's hard to get to, in the train station and all. And getting the portal to 9 3/4 opened by the Ministry when it's not for Hogwarts, but they've been paid to... you must come with me. You will come with me."

Draco nodded to him. "What time?" 

"Half three."

"What is it?"

"Ravenclaw's wand. It's hard to get at because it's tucked in the tracks, but it's precisely where the right wheel of the Hogwarts Express sits every year. Right is right." Dolohov seemed excessively proud of himself. It would've been endearing if he weren't such a psychopath. "We'll go together, right? He's going to be so angry that I... is he dead?"

Draco eyed Flint. He had no idea if he was dead yet or not. If not, he would be soon. He needed to get Dolohov out of here to do it. "Yes, he's dead. I'll take care of it. Just go to the room. Calm down. Smoke a little, all right? I'll be in at the end of my shift. It's all right, Antonin. I love you." 

It was the first time he'd said it, and it would be the last. Draco waited until Dolohov was out the door and clear of the corridor. He stepped over Flint and, pressing his wand tip to his chest, whispered, "Avada Kedavra." 

It wasn't as satisfying as killing someone who had wronged him personally, but he felt some justice that he did deserve it. He nicked Flint's wand and let Ginny out, pressing the wand into her hand.

She stared at him in confusion and then grabbed him to brush their lips together. While he was curious what that was about, he didn't have time to question it now. He grabbed his bag and hoisted it over his shoulder and set them out down the hall. 

The school had many exits, some more useable than others. Carrows had thoughtlessly explained how he'd gotten out through the side door when he'd gone to the apothecary. He didn't think of Draco as a prisoner, none of them did. Draco whispered the password to let up the wards and pushed through. Once outside of the wards, he Apparated them outside of Hogwarts and then looked down at Ginny. "Take us to the Hovel--er." They had a name for that place, didn't they? Draco couldn't think of it if he'd ever known it. "Your home. I think... that's where they are."

In a blink she'd grabbed him and they were in front of the rather distasteful sight of a house with too many add-ons. For once, Draco wasn't horrified by squalor; he was just relieved to possibly be somewhere safe. 

Ginny ran to the door and sobbed when it didn't open, obviously sealed shut in case of attack. It didn't take long for lights to turn on and the Weasleys to grab Ginny into the house. 

Draco hung back, approaching the house warily, not at all sure how his presence would be received. Potter stood in shadow, outlined from the door, but the glint of his glasses gave away his identity. It didn't take long for him to cross the distance between them, his eyes scanning Draco critically, resting at the bruising around his neck.

"You really did mean soon," said Potter.

"A little sooner than I thought," Draco responded, bringing his hand to his throat as if he could hide what Potter had already seen.

He told Potter where the final Horcrux was and the time he could get it. He was about to say something else, but found himself very close to Potter, and then he found himself not caring as the world grew suddenly very dim.


	2. Chapter 2

"What happened?" Ron asked, breathless from his run from the house when he saw what he thought was Draco lunging at Harry.   
  
"He passed out." So close to Draco, he could see the bite marks and cuts and scrapes he'd been trying to hide. "Um..." he slipped his arm under Draco and then threw him over his shoulder.   
  
"What the fuck happened to him?" Ron looked Draco over and decided to run ahead to open the door.   
  
"Dunno. We'll leave him for your mum to fuss over for now. We have a train station to get to."  
  
\--  
  
Everything was hazy, but there was a redheaded figure that was just starting to resolve in his vision.  
  
"Draco! Oh my God, Draco! You're back! I have missed you so much! I never got the chance to thank you or to tell you how much I love you!"   
  
_Ginny Weasley?_ Somehow 'I love you' only sounded marginally better coming from her.   
  
_I'm not dealing with this._  
  
Everything went black again.  
  
\--  
  
"..I can't say I'm excited about the prospect, but your actions have proven you to be more of a gentleman and a hero than Malfoys in the past, so if you and Ginny truly love one another..." Weasley's fat mum's voice rang out into the room, dulled by too many objects to give any resonance beyond her nasally disparaging tone.  
  
 _What the shit? I don't think so._  
  
Draco sunk back into sleep.   
  
\--  
  
"...but you did save my sister and so I suppose that I can forgive the things you said about Hermione and my mum and me..."  
  
 _King Weasel? My God, don't you people ever shut up?_  
  
\--  
  
"...I'm pretty sure you didn't do it for the greater good. There must be some reason for your actions. You've never been a good person and your home was filled with house-elves..."  
  
 _You always were the smart one. Now shut it._  
  
\--  
  
There were no voices this time Draco started to ascend to consciousness. He fluttered his eyes open recklessly to find Harry Potter sitting next to his bed staring at him.   
  
_Shit_.  
  
He closed his eyes again.  
  
"Wait, Draco, don't. I need to talk to you." Potter shook his arm, disrupting the chance he had at drifting off. "I have some questions to ask you."  
  
The shaking didn't cease, so he glared at Potter with as much venom as he could muster. "I have a question for you." His throat was dry and he rubbed at it. Potter pushed a straw to his lips and Draco sipped.   
  
Sipping and glaring didn't work very well together; Draco was quite annoyed with this.   
  
"Do you know where you are?" Potter asked as he set the glass of tepid water down.   
  
Crates as nightstands, mended, tatty duvet, crayon portraits-- Draco nodded. "Hell."  
  
"The Burrow. Do you know what day it is?"  
  
"If I'd known there was going to be a pop quiz I would've tried to dream of revising." Draco gestured for the glass and Potter supplied it.  
  
"You've been asleep for a little under a week. We've gotten the final Horcrux. I've killed Voldemort." Potter took the glass away. "Do you understand what this means, Draco?"  
  
"My question is: When did we get to be on a first-name basis, _Potter_?"   
  
In spite of Potter's dogged and obviously practiced line of inquiry and information packing, this question threw him and he blushed. "I just assumed that since you were on our side..."  
  
"You assume too much. About our relationship, or lack thereof, as well as what side I'm on." He took the glass from Potter and stuffed the straw in his mouth.   
  
"The trials have started and you did an awful lot for the Order for not being on our side," said Potter flatly.  
  
Draco was glad Potter's eyes were averted, because it was his turn to blush. It hadn't occurred to him that his actions would be _testified about_.   
  
"Yeah, well--" but there was no way to end that sentence in a dignified manner, so he sucked on the straw again.  
  
"So is what Ginny says true? You spied on the Death Eaters for her?" Potter's expression was inscrutable, but Draco got the idea that Potter didn't believe it, or at least didn't want to believe it.  
  
"She wasn't captured till later. You know that."   
  
Potter ruffled his hair and nodded. "I tried to tell her that, but she seems quite certain that you two..."  
  
"Christ." Draco rubbed his hand over his face. Open season from the Death Eaters, a grand escape and a week-long coma and he had to wake up to a school-girl crush.   
  
"I'll try again to explain it to her. It's the least of the bad news I have to tell you." Potter pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and took the empty glass from Draco. From somewhere in the gloom behind him, Potter produced a plain ham sandwich. "Are you hungry?"  
  
Draco poked at the sandwich. "I was."  
  
He flashed a wry smile at Draco. "No one knows what you like to eat."  
  
"This was the first guess?" Draco held the sandwich between his thumb and forefinger like one would hold a dirty nappy.   
  
"It was what was on hand. Do you want to hear the news, or not?"  
  
Tonelessly, Draco answered. "My mum and father are dead."   
  
Potter nodded slowly. "And Dolohov wasn't rounded up. There were a few Death Eaters that weren't, but Carrows indicated that Dolohov would be of particular interest to you."  
  
Draco winced, not just because Dolohov was probably looking for him, but because Carrows talked and that meant that _everything_ had probably come out. Everything but what happened with Carrows, which was really the least embarrassing.   
  
"I'm sorry, Draco-- Malfoy."  
  
"It's all right, Harry Potter." Draco handed the sandwich back to Potter-- Harry-- whatever; he wasn't hungry now.   
  
"Do you want to hear the good news now?" Harry took the sandwich and put it back into the gloom.   
  
It must've been the wee hours of the morning if they'd been talking and no one had burst in to pontificate their feelings on his arrival. At least Bill wasn't around to bite him. The stripe of dawn peeking through the faded-to-yellow curtains confirmed his belief.  
  
"There's good news?"  
  
"They're thinking of awarding you an Order of Merlin."  
  
Draco laughed at first, but Harry wasn't kidding. "Well, first butt boy to get a prize for fucking. I can't wait."  
  
He took some satisfaction that the notion made Harry squirm and hesitate. "The next part might not be good news, exactly."  
  
"My day has been filled with sunshine up to this point, Potter. Please don't harsh my mellow." He waved Harry on to just give him the news after a moment of confused silence.   
  
"The Malfoy Manor is yours."  
  
Draco sat up, his eyes wide and pleading for Harry not to be joking, although he didn't seem to be the joking sort today. "It's still intact?"  
  
"Yes, the Order secured it and it is protected by the Fidelius Charm. I'm your Secret Keeper for now. We can change it as soon as you're able." Harry stood. "That's it. You can go back to sleep now."  
  
As much as he'd wanted Harry to leave at the start, suddenly he wasn't sure if he wanted to be alone. He was exhausted, though. The short conversation with its ups and downs had taken quite a bit out of him, but he was pleased about the Manor.   
  
They were wrong. You _could_ go home again. Draco couldn't wait. "Thanks."  
  
Harry nodded and headed for the door. He paused just before his hand hit the knob and whirled around. "So Malfoy, are you all right?"  
  
His expression was shadowed by position. Draco could see his crossed arms, but nothing of whether he cared about how he answered this question or not.   
  
_Best to placate and say everything's fine._   
  
While he was nodding and Draco felt the words 'I'm fine' forming on his lips, what came out was, "No."  
  
The doorway was quiet for a moment and Draco wondered if Harry was silently laughing or simply gloating over how rotten things were. Instead, Harry said, "Me neither."  
  
\--  
  
When he woke up again, he was in his own bed; thick, soft sheets, a giant mattress with posters that spiraled towards the vaulted ceiling that held a modest chandelier-- but a chandelier nonetheless. Above him were his Quidditch posters, the only space on his walls not claimed by his mum for fine decorating-- a concession to allow Draco some freedom to express himself. Truth told, he didn't care for watching Quidditch that much, but he wasn't sure what else he should put up there. Quidditch seemed safe.   
  
The distinct fatty smell of a fry up wafted through his room and Draco, secretly hoping that this had all been a bad dream, pulled on his dressing gown and padded down the corridor, then the marble stairs till he made it to the kitchen. Harry was standing over the food, hopping back when it snapped loudly.   
  
"You're a little big for a house-elf." Draco helped himself to a cup of tea.  
  
"They're all gone." Harry scooped the food out and set it to drain over the fryer.   
  
Draco's eyes widened and then furrowed.   
  
"Your mum released them all before she..." Harry opened cupboards looking for plates.   
  
Draco opened one on the other side of the huge kitchen and set out two plates. "Topped herself off?" He relished Harry's silent awkwardness. "It was the smart move on her part. Things can get very bad where Death Eaters are involved."  
  
"Right." Harry parceled out servings for each of them.  
  
"House-elves probably kept trying to stop her. I'm glad she left me at least one."  
  
Harry gave him a questioning look, but Draco just kept grinning at him. Harry rolled his eyes realizing Draco meant him. "I volunteered to keep an eye on you until Dolohov was caught or you were well enough to see to things on your own."  
  
"A volunteer house-elf. How quaint." Draco led them to the extensive formal dining area. He set down his plate and eyed the huge stack of letters all addressed to him in the same writing.   
  
"Those are from Ginny. She... wouldn't take my word on why you saved her, probably because I didn't have a better explanation." Harry sat down and tucked into his food, but kept his eyes on Draco as if he might burst into flame.  
  
Which he wanted to do. Or maybe just have the letters burst into flame. This whole ordeal was already making him exceedingly tired. "This must be hard on you."  
  
"Not really." Harry looked at Draco and smirked. "I'm a coward anyway, I don't deserve her."  
  
"Oh right, I forgot how cowardly you are." He smirked back at Harry. "Is that true?"  
  
"No. Well, yes. I don't know, maybe."  
  
"Just so long as it's clear in your mind." Draco ate a few more bites, but after not having food for so long, he wasn't terribly interested. Fry ups were so déclassé, anyway.   
  
"The reason I gave her was true. She was captured, so that proves me out. I don't regret it and don't really want to revisit a relationship with her."   
  
"She's found someone else anyway." Draco folded his napkin and set it to the left of his plate.   
  
"Are you gay, Malfoy?"  
  
The question was so abrupt that it took a moment for Draco to sound it out to make sense of it. He drummed his fingers on the table in the way that Narcissa had said a million times not to. No one to stop him now. "I suppose as far as past practice dictates, that would be a fair assessment."  
  
"Just because some damaged people did things to you doesn't mean that..." Harry appeared to have lost his appetite as well and tossed his napkin on his plate and stood.   
  
"I've only loved someone once, he was a man. A straight man. I don't know what would've happened had he been more willing. Before that I was with Pansy, but we didn't do much of anything. She and I were better as friends, although we never really broke up. Think I should owl her?" Draco stacked his plate on top of Harry's, but Harry snatched them away to take them to a kitchen.  
  
"I think you should have a bath."  
  
"Will you wait outside the door to make sure my loofah isn't possessed?"   
  
Harry headed out the door with the dishes in hand, "I'll wait inside if you're _that scared_."  
  
Draco wasn't sure what to make of that, but it made him blush. Figuring Harry was just taking the mickey out of him; he blew it off and headed to the bath.  
  
\--   
  
It had been months since he'd been able to have a proper bath, so he luxuriated in his claw foot tub, filling it with bubbles while he allowed the warm water to soothe his aching muscles. The bathroom was just as he'd left it, only dustier. He cast a few cleansing charms to shine up the marble flooring and to make the brass fixtures glisten. Rose and lavender permeated the air with a note of relaxation.  
  
He rested his head against the lip of the tub and let his left hand dangle as his right moved slowly over his abdomen, teasing himself. Draco was slightly embarrassed that his choice of wank fantasy included Harry's offhand remark-- _I'll wait inside_ \-- and all of the possibilities that might entail.   
  
Draco pictured Harry sitting at the vanity, watching him fondle himself and shaking his head, calling him dirty, telling him to stop thinking about him. Another image of Harry standing over the tub, green eyes locked on Draco's hand as he tossed himself off, not saying a word. The vision of Harry blushing at the sight and turning around seemed most likely, but came and left without much fanfare. What finished him off was Harry slipping into the tub, sliding behind him and replacing Draco's hand with his own and pulling him off as he rubbed his cock between his cheeks-- not fucking him, but getting off against him nevertheless.   
  
With the bubbles vanishing into soapy water, now soiled with streams of ejaculate breaking up in the murky water; Draco was done. He toweled off, relishing the comparative softness of his home towels. Then he wrapped himself up in his plush dressing gown and pulled the drain and headed to his room.  
  
So many childish things, even after the summer before his sixth year where he'd ransacked his own room, trying to remove any trace of his childhood because he was the man of the house now. He realized how juvenile that action was and cringed at the memory. Now he wished for those precious souvenirs.   
  
He paused in front of the mantle and used his wand to stoke the fire before eyeing each photograph, set up in meticulous chronological order. Him as a baby, his mum holding him, both of his parents looked pleased and yet reserved. He squirmed in her arms and she kissed his head. Draco swallowed and moved to the next picture. He was a toddler confronted by a small rabbit. It was hard to say which of them was more frightened. The bunny jumped and Draco jumped back and fell on his arse. He didn't know why he'd kept that picture, other than he always thought a person falling was funny-- even if it was him.  
  
After that was a series of solemn family portraits, not much to show the family life he'd experienced, at least not the happier times. Perhaps his father was distant and his mum might've drunk a bit much at times and embarrassed him, but there was more to it all than these pictures would show. Towards the end were more candid photographs of him from Hogwarts; dressed in his Quidditch kit for the first time, at the Yule Ball looking dignified and not at all like a vicar, and the Quidditch Cup with Goyle looking perplexed.   
  
Crabbe and Goyle-- he hadn't thought about them in months. They hadn't had to run, they were probably still at Hogwarts, maybe following a new leader about. He hoped so; while they were slow, they were the only friends he'd ever had.  
  
Feeling the impending need to cry, Draco turned abruptly to his wardrobe and pulled on one of his casual robes in a dull grey. There was no need to impress Potter, and it was soft, warm and comforting.  
  
Heading down the corridor, he was surprised to hear voices and halted. Female voice and Potter-- they were arguing. After a beat, he sussed the tone to be Ginny's and headed to the doorway of the drawing room for a better listen.  
  
"I don't care that you don't approve, Harry. I don't need your approval."  
  
"It's not a matter of approving or disapproving; he just doesn't need your company right now. He's been through a lot, it was the first meal he'd come to. I only sent you an owl because you were so worried; I didn't want you to come over here."  
  
Ginny laughed. "Don't kid yourself. You knew I'd come over in a heartbeat. You just don't want me to see him because _you_ want to talk to me. To be honest, before all of this happened I'd have been thrilled at your attempt to reach out to me, but I've been through a lot now, too. I can help him. If he doesn't want that help, let him tell me."  
  
"For the last time, that's _not_ why I contacted you. At all. And as for Malfoy, needs more rest. He's only had one proper meal, and if he wanted to see you, he'd send for you," said Harry, sounding peeved.  
  
"He's probably too embarrassed to send for me. I just want to let him know I'm around and available and I understand why he did what he did with those men. Then I'll thank him for saving me."  
  
"Ginny, he didn't do this for you. He was spying before you got there, I told you that. And since when has Malfoy been a shrinking violet who can't say exactly what he wants?"  
  
Draco frowned and stared at the burning lamp at the other side of the hall, fingering the braided material on the hem of his sleeve, trying to decide whether he wanted to enter into this debate or not. It seemed like they were doing a good job deciding things for him.   
  
"I can do the math, Harry. I understand the whole thing wasn't for me, but he took a huge risk to get me out of there before something really horrid happened."  
  
Draco lowered his head and glared at the parquet floor. Once upon a time he'd wanted all the accolades he could get, now he just wanted to forget everything that had happened. That wasn't Ginny's fault, she probably wanted to talk about it, he just wasn't sure he could do that-- not for her, not for anybody.  
  
"Could you please just wait?" Harry's voice was tight and over-polite, like the final plea of a man about to lose his temper.  
  
"What are you hiding? What are you afraid is going to happen? You said yourself he's not a shrinking violet, if he doesn't want to see me, he'll say so and I'll leave. I just want to see him."  
  
Clearly, Ginny wasn't having Harry's protest and if he didn't want to hear a shouting match, he was going to have to intervene. With a long, slow exhale, Draco rounded the corner and stood dead-eyed in the doorway.  
  
"Draco." Harry's countenance was too filled with emotions to attach just one to. Eventually it melted into pity and Draco wanted to plow his fist into his face.  
  
Ginny whirled around and grabbed Draco into an embrace with preternatural speed. "Draco, I'm so glad you're all right."  
  
She smelled sweet like freshly baked cookies and syrup. Draco would've fought the contact had she not been so quick about it, but now that she was here; he found he really wanted a hug, even if he felt incapable of returning it. He pressed his face into her hair and immersed himself in the warmth, but was incapable of speaking.  
  
Harry sighed loudly and flopped onto a divan.  
  
"Don't mind him, he's just jealous." Ginny pulled back enough to look at Draco. She curled a finger under his chin to force him to look into her eyes. "I don't mind fighting with him to see you, so don't worry about that, all right?"  
  
Draco perked a brow. At what point did it seem like he had a problem with irritating Harry? "I'll try to keep my fretting to a minimum."  
  
She smiled and caressed his cheek. Draco remembered his mum doing that and charily pulled away. "Draco, I want to stay here and help you through this. Harry's here to protect you, but he... lacks empathy for people who are not him."  
  
Harry rolled his eyes, "Because nothing says 'I have empathy' quite like forcing your company on someone."  
  
"I'm pretty sure he didn't ask _you_ to move in with him," Ginny shot back.  
  
"I'm here for his and my protection. _You_ invited yourself over." Harry stood and crossed the drawing room crowded with dark furniture to confront her.  
  
"What do you think, Draco?" Ginny asked.  
  
He was surprised someone cared to ask, but since they were... "I think you had bloody well stop calling me by my first name."  
  
At Ginny's hurt expression, Draco sighed and shook his head. "I don't care who's here or who isn't, but I'm not going to talk about... any of... what happened before. So don't ask."  
  
He didn't stop to listen to whatever else anyone said as this conversation had already made him quite tired and he thought it a time for a nap. As he left the room, he heard the argument start again. Louder.   
  
Draco slammed the door to his room to block it out.  
  
\--  
  
There was a knock at the door. Draco lurched awake and glanced at the clock. In the dark, it glowed half eight. He'd slept the whole day.   
  
Tightening the sash on his dressing gown, he opened the door, expecting Ginny, but it was Harry with a plate of curry. Draco took the plate and utensils and went to sit at the small white table in his room he'd once played tea on. After he was set up to eat, with his utensils laid out just so, he began to eat. "She staying?"  
  
Harry followed Draco in and shut the door behind him and took the spot at the table across from him. "She is. She means well, but she's like her mum sometimes; gets a little too wrapped up in her need to help and forgets that sometimes people need some space."  
  
Draco ate a few bites of curry as he tried to form a response, but found he didn't have one other than a defeated, "Oh."  
  
"I can tell her not to. In fact, I have the power to keep her out completely if that's what you want." Harry rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. For reasons that Draco didn't care to think about, he found this gesture adorable.  
  
"As you pointed out, I don't have a problem expressing myself. I honestly don't care if she moves in or not." He stabbed at the curry, wondering why he was having a problem expressing how little he wanted her to live there. At least the manor was big; she would be easy enough to avoid.   
  
"It's your house, Malfoy. If you wanted, you could even ask me to leave. I'd help set the Fidelius Charm for you and even I wouldn't know where you were." Harry hadn't moved an inch, and was therefore, still appearing quite endearing, especially with that fiercely protective gaze. It reminded him of the way Snape used to look at him.   
  
"No, I want you to stay. I need a body to throw at Dolohov should I need to make an escape." He stirred the remains of his dinner and then dropped his fork, leaving it mostly uneaten.  
  
Harry grinned and shook his head. "I was thinking the same thing about you."  
  
"Maybe you could throw Ginny instead. We could make a clean getaway together." Draco shoved his plate away from him and sat back in his chair, watching Harry's smile fade. "That was a joke."  
  
"No, it's not that-- I got you were making a joke. Just... Ginny living here..." Harry frowned and dropped his hand from his chin to the top of the table with a soft thwap.  
  
"Are you worried I'll steal her away?" For whatever reason, the answer to that was incredibly important to Draco and he clocked every flicker of emotion on Harry's face.  
  
"That hadn't even occurred to me." Harry seemed amused by Draco's confused and then irritated expression.   
  
"You're a cocky twat, did you know?" As if he couldn't steal a girl from Harry if he wanted to.  
  
Harry laughed. "I don't know about cocky, she's just not mine to steal from. But if it gets you off to believe that it would bother me, then go for it. I just don't get the impression she's your type."  
  
Draco decided to give the implications of Harry's statement a miss. It could be taken a lot of ways; Draco chose to leave it at face value. "She's not."   
  
That seemed to please Harry, which Draco found vexing, but it was the truth. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. I doubt Mrs. Weasley would allow her to move out. After everything that's happened, I think she wants to keep an eye on her." Harry stood and took Draco's plate. "I'm going to turn in soon. In the morning I'm going to buy us a telly. If we're going to be stuck in here, we might as well be entertained."  
  
"A telly in Malfoy Manor. If he weren't already dead, that would kill my father."   
  
Harry nodded and grinned, "I won't tell if you don't." He headed for the door, stopping after he'd opened it. "Try not to stay up too late, you still need rest."  
  
 _Another father is born_.   
  
"I'll do my best."  
  
\--  
  
The telly turned out to be both an effective means of killing time and a conversation preventative. This suited Draco just fine as while Ginny had not moved in, she did show up daily to watch with him. Draco favoured game shows to the rest, finding Muggles behaving oddly in the hopes of cash prizes much more amusing than any one person had a right to.   
  
Draco didn't mind Ginny's presence, but he was thankful that Harry instituted the rule of talking only during the segments of the programme that interrupted the flow of what he was watching with advertisements. He was further pleased that Ginny mostly kept quiet during said advertisements, as they were often amusing as well.  
  
Before meal times, Harry would excuse himself from the arm chair he normally sat in to prepare food. Draco joined him on the pretense of being interested in the cooking process, but in truth, he was a bit uncomfortable being alone with Ginny. She'd never done anything untoward, but she tended to ask questions that Draco either didn't have answers to, or just didn't want to answer. She wanted to talk about her feelings about her abduction and his feelings about being there. He was content to listen to her talk, she was easy enough to tune out, especially with the telly in the background, but he was terribly uncomfortable with speaking about any of it.  
  
Watching Harry was much more comfortable, as he didn't ask questions. He simply prepared the meal and answered the occasional food-related question. Ginny would remain in the drawing room until the food was ready and took it with them, with the exception of dinner which Mrs. Weasley was adamant she be home for.   
  
Though it was awkward at times, Draco was comforted by the routine. He decided he must have gotten terribly comfortable with Harry given a couple of rather lewd dreams over the last couple of weeks. He was slightly nervous that eventually he would have a tawdry dream about Ginny, but it didn't happen.  
  
One afternoon, Draco found his enjoyment of _Countdown_ marred by Ginny setting her head on his shoulder. The action itself wasn't an issue; no one really got that arsed off over gestures such as that, but Draco wasn't sure how to take it. He'd sat with her on the couch for nearly a month and she hadn't made a move as bold as this. He shot Harry a questioning look, but Harry was staring fixedly at the telly. Draco felt abandoned and confused. He said nothing and followed Harry off to make dinner as usual.   
  
The next day, it happened again. The day after that, her head rested on his shoulder yet again. Draco thought it must be a terribly uncomfortable position to maintain for hours in a day, but she wasn't relenting, nor did she seem achy. He let it go.  
  
After a few days, she took to placing her hand on his leg. At first it seemed she was going to reach for his hand, but he moved it too quickly and began sitting with his arms crossed over his chest. Again, Harry stared stoically at the telly and Draco was too afraid to ask him what to do about it when they were alone.   
  
She had progressed to sliding her fingers gently over the back of his neck when he decided he needed to say something. The problem was that he had nothing to say. It felt good, actually, but the implications he knew were going to be too much for him to deal with. He looked over to Harry in the blind hope that moral support might finally be forthcoming, but he was gone from his chair.   
  
The next day Harry did not return to his chair and Ginny took to nuzzling his neck during advertisements. This did feel rather nice, but he was becoming more and more anxious about her intentions. She was closing in for an actual kiss when Draco excused himself to the bathroom. When he returned, he claimed Harry's armchair and stuck to it.   
  
Ginny didn't return for a couple of days.   
  
"She's not here Draco; you don't have to look so wild-eyed," Harry said after entering the den with a plate of biscuits.   
  
Draco leaned forward to snatch one and then sat back in the armchair to enjoy it. "I did not look wild-eyed."  
  
Harry pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. "The coast is clear; you can sit on the couch again."  
  
"Doesn't matter, the chair is fine. Unless you want it back, in which case I'd have to tell you that it's good to want things, it builds character." He snatched another warm biscuit from the plate sitting on the rosewood coffee table and sat back with it.  
  
Taking a seat on the couch, Harry shrugged. "I figured I'd sit here with you. Then if Ginny comes back, she can sit at the armchair and you will remain unmolested."  
  
"Do you think she'd come back?" asked Draco.  
  
Harry looked annoyed.  
  
"If you want her to come back, you could owl her." Harry appeared like he was going to stand, but then flopped against the couch again.   
  
Draco wasn't sure what he'd said to offend Harry. Maybe he wasn't as over Ginny as he'd said.   
  
"I don't necessarily want her to come back... I just... look, do you want me to sit on the couch with you or not? It would be impolitic for me to sit there if you want to win Ginny back."  
  
Harry shot Draco a queer look and then patted the cushion next to him. "I want you to sit here."  
  
\--  
  
"Did you take a vow of silence today or something?" asked Harry as he moved his queen into the line of Draco's rook.  
  
Draco winced at what a crap chess player Harry was. His moves were all gutsy, to be sure, but lacked vision, planning, cunning. Not the worst Draco had seen, but for some reason he'd expected better.   
  
The move was so distracting that in spite of the fact that he'd heard him quite fine, Draco croaked, "What?" His voice was rough and dry and it occurred to him that he really hadn't said much of anything.  
  
"You barely even talked back to the telly. Did you finally catch on that they couldn't hear you?" Harry grinned impassively.   
  
It might've been more cutting if Wizarding entertainment wasn't responsive. Reading how Harry meant that proved impossible, so Draco just took his queen off the board. "Not much to say, I guess."   
  
That wasn't actually true; he had plenty to say, but couldn't quite figure out _what_ exactly he had to say. Draco stared at the queen in his hand, recounting how he had spent most of the day with Harry watching the telly at his side, clocking every muscle shift with concern.   
  
In his mind he practiced all of the ways he would respond should Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, rest his head on his shoulder. He debated the merits of holding his hand and what it might feel like if Harry's lips brushed against his neck. None of these thoughts required much talking, and it kept him from paying much attention to what was going on onscreen.  
  
Harry barely looked at the chessboard. Draco could feel his eyes on him.   
  
"Are you uncomfortable that Ginny's been gone?" Harry finally asked.   
  
He seemed to pick a piece up at random and moved it on the board. Draco was pretty sure it was an illegal move, but he was getting the unsettling impression that this game wasn't being played on the board.  
  
"No."   
  
If he was being played, he wasn't going to make it easy. Draco checkmate, even though it was readily available.  
  
"Then why the silent treatment?" Harry made another random move and his expression dared Draco to point it out.  
  
Instead, Draco kept his head bowed; trying to use his hair to conceal his blush, knowing full well what he was thinking about probably wasn't what Harry wanted to hear. He scanned the chessboard as if it had something that Harry might want to hear.  
  
"Worried, I guess."  
  
"About Dolohov?"   
  
The answer came quickly, and it must've been what was on Harry's mind, so Draco nodded slowly.   
  
"Or about Ginny's advances?"  
  
Those had been unexpected and a little uncomfortable, but he wasn't that upset over them. "It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me."  
  
"I wrote to Mrs. Weasley and asked her if she could try to keep Ginny at home a few days, that she was pressuring you." Harry gestured to the board. "Going to make your move?"  
  
Draco took the knight. "What did she say to that?"  
  
"I think Mrs. Weasley was relieved. I don't get the impression she likes you overmuch after what happened to Bill even with all of the accolades for your spying." Harry made another clumsy move which assured Draco that he was throwing the game.  
  
"The Malfoy-Weasley feud is pretty extensive. The feeling is mutual." At Harry's look, Draco added, "Ginny's all right, I suppose."  
  
"So you like her."  
  
This time Draco went for checkmate, ending the game. "I don't hate her. That's a long way from liking her. She means well, I guess. I'm not sure what she wants from me."  
  
Harry let the pieces run back under the board and set themselves back into their places on the green felt. "Maybe she wants to comfort you, make you feel better. You did save her, no matter what pretense you use to hide behind. You did something good and she feels something for you. I don't think she's trying to gain an advantage."  
  
"She doesn't owe me comfort and she's... not my type." Draco sat back in his chair, deciding to leer at Harry after that statement, just to see what he'd do.  
  
"That's what I thought." Harry blushed faintly, but it went away quickly and he held Draco's gaze. "You were just doing your job as a spy."   
  
Draco nodded and crossed his arms, not sure where this was going.  
  
"I was scared when I saw you, you looked so different. But then you said you were a spy and do you know what I thought of?" He grinned at Draco and Draco prepared to be offended. "Us in our first year with you following me about after curfew."  
  
That idea took Draco back to a simpler time, where he fancied himself as dangerous to Harry as the Dark Lord. He let his head fall back and laughed, remembering how stupidly afraid they all were. "I was destined to be..."  
  
His eyes rested on Harry who was gazing at him with an unmistakable affection. "Destined to be a spy, hm?" asked Harry.   
  
For a brief, stupid moment Draco thought that Harry wanted to kiss him since he was staring at him with such adoration. They slowly closed the distance over the chess board, lips lazily pressed together, so sweet and warm. The soft feel of breath against breath before heads tilted and lips parted, tongues met and teased, tasting, feeling each other for the first time.   
  
Draco's hands cupped Harry's cheeks, holding him in place as he drew the kiss out tenderly while Harry moved down his arms to pull him in at the waist as they sidestepped the chess table. They pressed together into this long kiss that felt no apprehension, no fear-- nothing but possibility.   
  
Though he'd had many by now, Draco counted it as his first real kiss.   
  
Which was what made it so disappointing when Harry pulled back and gave Draco a confused look and wiped his mouth over the back of his hand before saying breathlessly, "That wasn't supposed to happen."  
  
It was Snape all over again, and Draco had never felt like such an idiot. "Right, well..."  
  
"It's late."  
  
"Very."  
  
"I'm going to..." Harry nearly tripped backing out of the room. Draco almost laughed at the way Harry put his hands over his arse as he went. Almost.   
  
Maybe if he could breathe, if it didn't hurt so much, he would have.  
  
"Right."  
  
Draco went back to his room and owled a message to Ginny.  
  
\--  
  
Maybe it wasn't exactly what he wanted, but it was becoming quickly apparent that what he wanted and what he got were always going to be miles apart. Ginny stroked her fingers through his hair as the telly ran its nonsense in the background. Draco kept his eyes closed as she burbled about how her mum had protested her coming, especially given Harry's note, and how thrilled she was that Draco's owl delivered his scroll in the midst of that debate proving her right.   
  
He might've felt a twinge of guilt, but all he was doing was laying his head in her lap. Maybe he was using her a little, but as far as he could tell, he was being used by one or both of them already, so he might as well get in a few hits himself.   
  
When he finally peeked back at the armchair where Harry usually sat, he found Harry glaring back at him.   
  
Draco smirked and Harry looked away.  
  
\--  
  
Draco lay next to Ginny on his bed, sprawled out enough so that their hands were touching. He stared at the molding encircling his mini-chandelier, thinking not for the first time that it was a bit much for a bedroom but that it really wasn't his call, now was it?  
  
He was pleased that Ginny wore robes rather than the latest Muggle fashions. Draco realized that probably had more to do with her inability to afford anything but mended robes, but he preferred to think that on some level she accepted the old ways. Still, they were tatty and peach didn't suit her. Her hand was creeping towards his when he sat up and all at once announced, "You need new robes."  
  
Ginny sat up, her hair askew and face puzzled. "We can't go shopping."  
  
Standing, Draco offered his arm. "Oh ye of little faith."  
  
\--  
  
Narcissa's room was cold in decor, all steel and blue grey with glinting silver and gold accoutrements scattered over heavy mahogany furniture. Ginny examined her reflection in the tall round mirror of a vanity. The brocade was exquisite, even if Draco wasn't sure that the burgundy did much for Ginny's complexion.   
  
He'd never realized just how small and frail his mum was until he watched Ginny trying to squeeze into her clothing.  
  
The room had remained empty since he'd gotten here-- there were many rooms too painful to explore. In the absence of his father's presence in the last couple of years he'd lived here, he'd taken to calling this room his mum's. Soon, it would just be a room; maybe his room.   
  
"What do you think?" Ginny twirled and the bottom of the robe flared into an unflattering balloon and then fell.   
  
"Looks great."   
  
"You didn't even look!" Ginny grinned and lifted his chin with her curled fingers to force Draco to look into her brown eyes.   
  
It only took an instant, a heartbeat before Ginny's lips were mashed to his and her hands tangled in his hair. There wasn't much Draco could say about the kiss other than it was both skillful and unwelcome, so he gently pushed her back.  
  
"I don't understand, why did you ask me to come back?" She sighed and flopped onto the bed, folding her arms as she gave Draco a petulant glare worthy of...well... him.   
  
Draco followed, crawling onto the bed as he watched Ginny try to disguise her irritation. He rolled onto his back and dropped his head in her lap, implying _play with my hair_ as he'd often done with Pansy. She complied immediately and Draco exhaled in slow relief. "I thought it would make Potter angry."  
  
She tugged his hair enough to make him wince. "Ooooh, I see now. Using me to make him jealous isn't going to work, you know." He could hear the resignation in her voice and hoped that it would stick this time.  
  
"He seemed plenty jealous to me." Draco watched her face, absently counting freckles on her nose as she studied his face. She appeared to be contemplating telling him something that was obviously not to her benefit to say.   
  
"There are many reasons why I think Harry's a coward. It wasn't just that... well, yes, his reasons for dumping me were lame and cowardly, but there's a reason I didn't really fight him on it as well." Ginny returned to stroking his hair and Draco ditched counting freckles to close his eyes and enjoy being petted.  
  
"What would those reasons be? Because he's a dork with glasses that's more interested in being a hero than sex? That he's a clumsy social retard that acts like someone brought up in a cupboard? Or did he just have bad breath?" Draco smirked when she tugged his hair this time, expecting it and surprisingly relaxed in her presence. Or maybe it wasn't a surprise; perhaps it was desperation for someone to talk to. He didn't care to analyze.  
  
"You tell me. He spent most of the year following you around, up until he caught me with Dean. Then after we were together he kept worrying about what _Ron_ would think up until he broke up with me worried I'd be in danger from Death Eaters." She'd begun tracing his lips with her index finger and Draco couldn't deny that the gentle touches were arousing, and she really was beautiful.   
  
He just didn't want her.   
  
It was a shame, because she really was warm, gentle and funny.  
  
Draco adjusted his head on her lap so that he could move his lips away from her finger and was relieved that she took the hint. "Good call on that last bit."  
  
"Yeah, but I don't think that's really why we broke up." Ginny sighed. "I always fall for the gay ones."  
  
"I always fall for the straight ones," he replied before he could weigh his words.   
  
His eyes snapped open, but she looked more amused than perturbed.  
  
"Not this time."   
  
\--  
  
"Draco, you're leading her on! You know you don't have feelings for her; you're just trying to get at me for... " Harry gestured for Draco to finish the sentence.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes that Harry couldn't even verbalize that they'd shared a kiss. "You seem to be seeking someone who cares what you think. There is no one that fits that description here. Maybe you should try another room."  
  
He spared a smirk for Harry's exasperation-- even if he still wasn't sure who he was jealous of. Strangely, he didn't feel at all bad that Harry walked in on he and Ginny napping together, his head still resting in her lap and her red hair spread over the pillows. It wasn't exactly the most scandalous of tableaus, but Harry was ticked.   
  
From Draco's perspective, he'd been completely upfront with Ginny and while she wasn't exactly _pleased_ to have fixated on two queers in a row, she took it fairly well. At least they were friends, or so she said when she hugged him before taking the Floo back to the Burrow.  
  
"Maybe _you_ should try _another house_!" Harry said, his eyes bright and fierce.   
  
Harry's ferocity was wasted effort; Draco wasn't intimidated. "This is _my house_."   
  
"Then maybe I should leave."  
  
The stupidity of the situation made it hard not to laugh. Draco gaped at him. If this was Harry Potter attracted to him, then he'd hate to see how he behaved when he didn't like him. "Maybe you should."  
  
"Maybe I will!"   
  
But Harry wasn't moving. In fact, he didn't even look inclined to go anywhere other than the way his eyes were wildly moving around the room, perhaps looking for something to throw.  
  
Draco folded his arms. He knew he should probably back down, but he just didn't want to.   
  
"What's stopping you?"  
  
For a moment, Harry looked hurt. Then his face screwed up with the effort of thought. "Dolohov could figure out a way around the Fidelius. Then you'd be left here alone-- a sitting duck with no one to help you because I'm your Secret Keeper."  
  
Right, except that the Fidelius Charm was basically foolproof and aside from actually being a fool, Dolohov had the disadvantage of being completely nutters. Draco knew this and was pretty sure Harry did as well. He took a small victory in Harry's desperation and decided to twist the knife. "Ginny knows how to get here."   
  
"Shows how little you care about her that you'd put her in danger like that." Harry stepped closer, getting right into Draco's frustrated face, glaring down at him.  
  
"When did I ever say I cared about her?" Draco growled, hoisting himself onto his toes to correct the size gap. They were nose-to-nose now, lips so close to one another that they almost brushed, but bodies tensed for a fight. It was excruciating to be this close to Harry and not grab him, not kiss him, not press his growing erection into his hip just to hear him yelp with helpless fear over what to do with it.   
  
"Then why did you ask her to come back?"   
  
Draco wanted to see what Harry's full expression was. All he could see were his eyes, and at this proximity it made them nearly impossible to read, especially since his glasses were starting to fog over.   
  
"To tick you off."  
  
Unlike the night before, this kiss was awkward with bumping lips and noses. Draco wrote it off to Harry's inexperience at being in control. He refused to acknowledge that he might've been too eager for it.  
  
It was he who whimpered at Harry's length digging against his leg, but he was comforted and pleased with Harry's response whimper followed by a low moan as Draco slid his fingers through the belt loops to hold him in place as he ground against him and dragged them to the bed.  
  
There was something morally lacking about frotting against your former nemesis on the powder blue duvet on your dead mum's bed, but at the moment all Draco could think about was the hard press of the promise of what was to come against the crook of his leg, making him tremble.   
  
Finding Harry's glasses jabbing into his cheek uncomfortable, Draco broke an arm off the frame trying to remove them. He yanked Harry's oversized t-shirt over his head; sparks of static electricity crackled through Harry's hair, making him appear untamable. Between the redness of Harry's debauched lips, the blackness of his hair, the white pallor of his complexion and his brutal green eyes, Draco was awash with lust and the need to corrupt his innocently blissful expression.   
  
"Fuck me," breathed Draco.  
  
The impact of Draco's bluntness made Harry visibly shiver, but his eyes widen in alarm.   
  
"I've never... I don't know if..." babbled Harry.  
  
"I have."   
  
It was probably a monumentally bad idea to go from war to love, even if this wasn't actually _love_ but something else entirely. He shoved Harry back and started to unbutton his own robes.   
  
"Strip," commanded Draco.  
  
Harry looked doubtful, but shirtless with his otherwise loose jeans obviously bulged, he couldn't deny his interest. Draco slipped an ivory shoulder from his robe, then the other. When he stood the clothing rippled to the floor, leaving him undone. He cupped the front of Harry's pants, nudging the length with the palm of his hand.   
  
As Harry's eyes fluttered closed, his resolve snapped and he dug into his belt and jeans to follow Draco's instruction.   
  
Though Draco had had sex many times, he'd never really been the one with the most experience, nor was he ever really in control. This time he wasn't the shuddering virgin. He touched delicately over Harry's shoulders and down his chest, marveling in the moment that Harry Potter was naked in front of him.   
  
He wanted to appreciate it, but he realized that the uncertain look in Harry's eyes might curtail his fun. No matter what happened after this, whether Harry in a fit of denial decided to stop talking to him, or Dolohov came in the night and slaughtered him, he would always be Harry's _first_.  
  
Kneeling in front of him, he scattered kisses down his body, feeling Harry's warm, soft cock snuggling against his neck until he backed off enough to slide it into his mouth.  
  
Draco got no small amount of pleasure from Harry's surprise, and the way that he kept his eyes keen to his mouth swallowing Harry's prick. Or maybe Harry was just taking the moment to appreciate that Draco Malfoy was kneeling in front of him doing this. Awkwardly, Harry patted Draco's head and finding that he wasn't prevented from touching him, slid his fingers through his hair.  
  
Satisfied that Harry was hard and that he'd left enough spittle on his prick to ease his invasion, Draco released him and backed himself onto the bed, rolling over onto his belly. He brought his knees under him and spread them as he raised his arse up. The cool air teased his opening and Draco felt utterly exposed. First he felt Harry's hands on his cheeks, spreading them further with a tender care Draco had not experienced before. His skin tingled with the touch.  
  
As arousing as kissing Harry was, and the groping, sucking and frotting-- Harry's cool, exploring fingers and the way Draco could just _feel_ his intense curiosity stroking him like tendrils of fog, was even more electrifying. Harry's thumb pushed into him and he looked over his shoulder to see Harry eyeing his thumb with suspicion. Then he slipped a dry finger into him and Draco breathed through his teeth. It didn't hurt exactly; it was more of a slight sting to the entry.   
  
"I... don't know if I can," Harry confessed.  
  
Draco sat up on his heels and turned to kiss him again, pulling him to the bed and laying him down on soft linens. He kissed his cock again, rewetting it before he straddled Harry, legs on either side of his waist.   
  
"You want to," Draco assured him.   
  
Harry's blush confirmed it.   
  
With his arm behind him to direct Harry's cock into him, Draco slowly pushed back, exhaling as he filled him. Harry's cock pushed aside muscle and skin to surround him utterly. It was better this way, Draco decided. He could see Harry's face, the way his eyes rolled back and the way his mouth worked to form words when all that came out was a moan.   
  
It only took a few strokes before Harry came, but Draco was used to having sex without coming. He leaned down to kiss away the sweat that dotted Harry's face and then cuddled in next to him, spreading a claming hand over his chest. Draco watched it rise and fall as Harry's breaths slowed to a steady pace.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning Draco tried not to take it personally that things seemed to have gone back as they were. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he should probably just be glad that Harry didn't flee the room straightaway. Still, he was hurt, saddened and most of all embarrassed by his lascivious behavior. 

He'd wanted to corrupt Harry, but instead he'd just broken off yet another piece of himself.

Out of habit, or perhaps in the hopes that Harry might say something, he'd followed him into the kitchen to watch him prepare breakfast. The normal convivial chatter about food and Ginny had evaporated and all Draco was left with was shifting from foot to foot and wishing that Ginny were here. 

While he was certain that Ginny wouldn't be exactly thrilled to hear this update, at least she might be able to speculate with him on what the silence meant. On a completely other train of thought, he just wanted to tell _someone_ that he'd been shagged by the Chosen One. That was a huge upgrade from Dolohov and Draco tried to be optimistic about at least that much, even if it wasn't going to be an actual relationship. 

Draco caught the mottled reflection of himself shifting nervously and realized that he'd been sighing and checking the clock far too many times. Every time he looked at Harry, he was cooking and seeming to pointedly not look at him. That's why he was surprised when Harry asked, "Ants in your pants?"

Immediately, Draco shoved his hands into his slate grey robe-- a garment that was a bit formal for lounging in but one he thought brought out the coolness of his eyes and made him look graceful. 

"Could be something worse than ants in there, you might want to get yourself checked," Draco shot back before he could edit the snark. Was he really that desperate to get Harry on the subject as to debase himself? 

Harry cleared his throat and took a moment to collect himself before he replied, obviously measuring his words in ways that Draco hadn't. "Last night was... last night. It won't happen again."

"Good job I have Ginny then, yeah?" Though he kept his expression fierce when Harry whirled around in shocked anger, inwardly he cringed. 

In a blink they'd regressed to two angry boys without the comfortable backdrop of Hogwarts to keep them from doing any serious damage to one another. 

Draco gripped his wand, just in case.

For his part, Harry didn't pull a wand or do anything beyond glare at Draco, his teeth clenched as he tried to master himself. "You want everything when you want it and how you want it. You've given no consideration to me or what I might need from you. You know what? You and Ginny _deserve each other_." Harry pulled the skillet from the lit burner and set it on a cold one as he turned the hob off. "I've had enough."

Harry was beautiful in his anger, beautiful in his determined gait and tragically beautiful when he'd given up. For a moment, Draco just watched him leave, storming out of the kitchen and to the hall. Losing sight of him, Draco followed, always keeping yards of distance between them. 

_Harry can't leave, he hasn't packed his things._

It was the most ridiculous thought, but Draco clung to it as the front door swung open and Harry bolted through, and slammed it behind him. Draco rushed to the door and cracked it open, determined to keep watching Harry, no matter where he went.

What he saw froze him to the spot.

Before he could even call out a warning to Harry, Antonin Dolohov grabbed Harry from behind. One arm curled around his neck while the other squeezed the wrist of Harry's wand hand. Draco felt empathetic pain in his wrist as he saw Dolohov's fingers feeling out the soft spots where the nerves transmitted extreme pain. 

Where to touch a person to make it hurt the worst was Dolohov's specialty and Draco was far too acquainted with that fact.

For a moment, he pulled his head back into the house and shut the door, pretending he couldn't hear Harry screaming. Dolohov laughed a high hysterical mad laugh and Draco heard his name over the din of shrieking. 

Then he heard Harry clearly enunciate the word _never_.

Maybe Harry didn't love him and never would, but he didn't deserve this. Maybe Draco had pushed too far too fast out of desperation. Maybe this was just his lot in life-- being on the wrong side and never really getting to make a choice of his own-- except the one to spy. His reward was his brief interlude with Harry and now it was time for retribution and reparations for a lifetime of privilege and ill will to begin.

Screwing up courage that didn't come naturally, Draco pulled his wand and charged out of the large maple door and fled the short distance to the manor gates and walked through onto the grassy yard that bordered the manor property to reveal himself.

"Let him go." Draco stared into the face of madness; Dolohov's dark, sunken eyes and his lips twisted in shocked malice at his sudden appearance and sealed his fate.

"Drop your wand and I'll let him go." His arm tightened around Harry's throat, but Harry tried to keep his expression neutral aside from shaking his head for Draco not do to this.

"Let him go and I'll drop my wand."

Dolohov slacked his restraint on Harry and then took it up again. "How do I know you'll drop your wand if I let him go?"

It was only out of terrified restraint that Draco didn't snark worse than he did. 

"What are you, new? Because if I wanted him dead then I'd kill you both right now and have a spot of tea."

At first Dolohov looked angry, as if he were going to kill Harry just out of sheer irritation. Then he laughed-- a frightening hysterical sort of laugh that made Draco reconsider that plan. Sure he had feelings for Harry, but he could get over them, right? He was young, there were other boys... it wasn't as if Harry was putting out. Dolohov released Harry and shoved him towards Draco. 

"I forgot how mouthy you were. I'll just have to keep that pretty gob filled."

Draco would have retorted, but he was starting to feel a cold prickle of terror in remembrance of how bad it had been and what he'd just committed himself to. As Harry neared him, his gaze intent on Draco, Draco let his wand drop, slow in the absence of sound or time having any sort of meaning

"I will find you, Draco," whispered Harry.

Draco looked at him in wary disbelief. The sentiment didn't surprise him in the least. It was the sort of bold statement that a hero would make and Draco knew that without a doubt, a hero was what Harry was. 

What threw him was the passion in his stare. It was beyond mere heroism, and if Draco had started to doubt that, Harry's cupping the back of his head to brush their lips together quelled it. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Dolohov's arm swinging madly and shoved Harry back as he jumped out of the line of fire himself. He ran for Dolohov, before he'd have a chance to try another hex and grabbed his wrist. It was mere fancy that he could wrest the wand from him before Dolohov Apparated them elsewhere, but fancy was all Draco had, so he tried it.

"Don't give up, Draco! I'll fi--"

And with a loud crack, Harry's shouting ceased and Draco trembled.

\--

The tracking spell hadn't worked and in his pacing, Harry was just beginning to realize just how thoroughly fucked Draco was. Probably in ways more literal than he could stand to contemplate. 

Ginny's arrival didn't help his mood, but he was too wound up to even start to explain what was going on, so she had started running through the manor looking for Draco. Perhaps it was cruel to let her go on like that, and her increasingly hysterical cries of his name certainly weren't helping him think.

"What have you done with him? Who has him?" she demanded, her brown eyes filled with an accusing fury.

"Dolohov." 

"...What?" Ginny stared into Harry's eyes a moment and then shoved him hard against the wall when he didn't respond. "WHAT?"

Catching his balance after bouncing from the wall, he pushed his glasses up with his middle finger and glared back at Ginny. His voice remained calm although he felt anything but. 

"Antonin Dolohov showed up and took him."

"What, just walked through the front door, then?" Ginny brandished her wand, ready to hex Harry if he continued to give her stilted, enigmatic answers.

Harry eyed the wand and then looked back up at her. "No. We were fighting. I left the house and... Dolohov grabbed me."

"What were you fighting about?"

Of course she'd have to ask _that_ question. Harry exhaled impatiently. "It doesn't matter what we were fighting about or how things happened. We need to figure out how to find him."

"Did you try a tracking spell?" Ginny pocketed her wand and folded her arms, her posture filled with resolve that surprised Harry. She wasn't a little girl anymore.

"That was the first thing I tried. I'm not an ickle, Ginny. The Death Eaters have ways of shielding themselves, that's what's made them hard to round up."

Ginny frowned deeply, her eyes lowered as she thought. "What about the Ministry? They could trace him?"

"No good, Dolohov's made himself untraceable or he'd've been caught by now." Harry carded his hand through his hair in frustration and squeezed the back of his neck.

"I didn't mean trace Dolohov, I meant Draco. It's always possible that in his... excitement... he could've forgotten to charm Draco." 

Harry looked up at Ginny, eyes wide in recognition of a brilliant idea. In a flash, he was to the fireplace, Floo powder in hand. 

"Ministry of Magic!"

\--

There was a sickening, almost electrical charge before each purple lash of magic hit his back like the crack of a whip. Only Dolohov didn't use anything quite as mundane as an actual whip. Instead, he invoked dark magic that found soft skin and shredded it. Draco felt the sick feeling of the warmth of his skin torn apart and the dripping wet slickness of his blood raining down on the grey stones. His arms were up, chained to the ceiling in the cave. He yanked his bindings again, trying to remain as soundless as he could. 

Around the cave were the affectations of civilization; a small makeshift bookcase, a stand for a hotplate and jugs of animal skins that held water. 

Dolohov pressed his long, sallow body against Draco's young supple one. Draco thought to stamp on his foot, but given the last warning he'd gotten about such a defense, he decided he'd rather keep his appendages.

But now Dolohov was against him, his cock rubbing over his red wet thigh. The tip of his cock ran through it, his breathing was ragged as he watched the way that it interrupted the flow of blood to twist his prick on Draco's thigh. 

Draco clenched his jaw, knowing what was coming. He tried to empty his mind of all thoughts as he stood with his face before dull rocks. For a moment, there was silence and he felt nothing but Dolohov's warm hands on his waist. He prayed that he was changing his mind that he was too tired to continue. Instead, he felt the pressure again. 

Dolohov was breaching him, not just with his prick but he'd slid in two fingers as well. He pulled and teased inside of him, clearly meaning to stretch Draco cruelly. He tried to block out all thoughts, to go with the stretching, not thinking about the blood slithering down his back, scabby fingers and diseased prick inside of him. To claim him, Dolohov dragged his hard teeth behind Draco's neck, leaving savage teeth marks. 

"Mine.... you're mine. I missed you, Malfoy. Did you miss me?"

"No." 

Draco rested his forehead against his connected arms, emptying his mind, trying not to think about the humiliations, or about what was being done to him. 

"Did you come to see him opened?" asked Dolohov.

Though he wondered who Dolohov was talking to, Draco didn't look. Too often he'd tried to see who the madman spoke with only to find no one there. It was always more distressing to know that Dolohov was talking to imaginary people than to think someone else might be there.

Dolohov bent to his knees, pushing his fingers inside of him. He pulled Draco's arse open, as wide as he could with all four fingers. Draco groaned at the humiliation and in fear of who he must be showing. 

"I'll share him with you. Only his mouth. You have to fuck his mouth. His arse is mine. I'm getting my fist into him," Dolohov rasped. 

"Are you really?" Harry's voice was husky and Draco dreaded that it was not the righteous indignation that he'd have hoped that he would have. He sounded interested. "Your whole fist? I might like to see that."

"You won't try to fuck him yourself?" asked Dolohov, his wand trained on Harry as the boy slid his fingers over the lashes on his back.

Draco trembled, not sure if he'd ever felt anything that danced on the edge of pain and ecstasy before. Harry's touches were almost more maddening because he wanted them. He longed for Harry to touch him even if he was going to hurt. 

More than any of the tortures he'd endured; the realization that he would take Harry in any way that he could get him stung the worst. Unable to control it, he whimpered again and went lax against the chains, letting them hold him up. Maybe his lot in life was just to move from strong Wizard to strong Wizard, each of which would treat him badly-- would treat him how he felt and looked, like a stretched cow, waiting for slaughter. 

Evidently, Dolohov had found something in Harry that he approved of and he eased back to watch him explore and touch. In spite of political affiliations, he was more than willing to share his toy. Maybe he'd just gone that crazy. It wouldn't do to put too much stock in his sanity. "You can have his cock if you want, Potter. That thing is useless. Rarely rises to the occasion, but it can be fun to yank on or stick pins in. Do you like sticking people with pins?"

If Harry was anything other than mildly interested in what Dolohov had to say, he didn't show it. Instead, he traced his index finger over the head of Draco's cock. As scared and angry as he was, Draco was surprised when he felt it begin to stir under Harry's gentle manipulation. 

But the arousal was there, and he was getting hard, and Harry leaned in to say something to Draco. It was faint, almost a whispered prayer with the ardency of immediate need. "Don't scream. Hold on until the cavalry arrives."

"It's not just screaming Dolohov wants." 

Harry grabbed his chin to force him to look into his eyes. The look was defiant, but afraid and Draco experienced a moment of doubt that Harry could do this. "I don't think _I_ could bear it if you screamed"

Draco looked behind him, afraid of how many people would see him like this, stretched and glistening with sweat, arse bright red and spotted with a thick white lubricant that Dolohov had used to try to work his fist into him. He dropped his head when Dolohov looked at him. 

"Dolohov, how long have you been doing this? The effects of those spells are incredible. I've never seen lashes like that. Such a brilliant blue. I didn't realize skin and blood could do that." 

"They can't. It's the magic is wot does it. Gets into the skin and makes it stay that way. Sometimes you can undo it, but you always have the blue scarring left. You can't so easily undo that one." Dolohov lit up a pipe and inhaled the smoke and then blew it out, imbuing the cave with the scent of incense. 

Harry nodded to him and gestured with his hand to go on, his hand on Draco's chin, still stroking him.

"There are some good ones though," he said, naming off a few. "I like to start with a blank canvas each time. I fear one day my art will have progressed to the point where I won't want to change a thing about him. Then Malfoy will be scarred in the way I see fit for eternity. He'll be marked as mine. You should get yourself a boy, Potter. Unless... you have the temperament our sweet Draco here does."

"Oh? What temperament does he have?"

"Malfoy's a little cock tease. Got information out of us, but he liked what he was doing. Anyone could see that. He didn't run away because he was scared. He ran because he wanted me to follow him, wanted me to be worthy of taking him like this-- of owning him. It was a good game, wasn't it, Malfoy?" 

Dolohov waited in the hopes that Draco would answer one way or the other so he could punish him for either being greedy or for lying. Sagely, Draco remained impassive. 

Then he looked over his shoulder out the front of the cave, thinking he'd seen something out there. It was but a flicker. Maybe a bird. Birds were common out here and Draco had long since quit hoping that there was someone interested in helping him. But then another flew by, and another. It was getting to be much for coincidence, but it could have been anything. Maybe a flock was coming to roost.

That was why he was so shocked that Harry and Dolohov's discussion about what all they were going to do with his body was interrupted by hexes flying blindly into the room. Harry hit the floor and crawled towards Draco as several stunners barely missed him. Harry pointed his wand at the chains over his head. The severing charm hit its mark and Draco dropped from the suspension and fell onto Harry who cradled him, whispering soothing words.

Watching the front of the cave from Harry's lap, not answering how he was, he saw the wizards and witches on dragons and brooms. They were led by Tonks who was barking orders as Charlie zoomed in closer with the dragon to strike the killing blow on Dolohov. 

When Dolohov finally hit the floor, Draco felt at ease enough to pass out. 

\--

The first thing Draco fuzzily thought when he awoke was that he wasn't in St. Mungo's. 

It shouldn't have been a shock to awaken in his bedroom, yet it was. Everything smelt sickeningly familiar and his skin crawled with how little he wanted to be himself right now. He ached for how everyone had seen him, but mostly rankled that _Harry_ had seen him that way. 

As he shifted, he felt how tight the skin on his back was. He wondered if he'd carry the scars or if someone had tried to fix them. Dolohov seemed to know how to do that, but with a grim satisfaction, he remembered the way Dolohov's face went waxy flat when he crumpled to the floor of the cave-- whether his back was permanently disfigured or not, Dolohov had left his indelible mark on Draco in the end. 

Reaching behind him, Draco found what he could touch to be smooth, but it stung. He pushed off of the bed, glaring at his room as if it should have protected him from all of this.

Heading to the bathroom, Draco looked at his back in the mirror. There were traces of blue stripes that looked like giant veins crawling up to strangle his spine. He held out hope that they were still healing. It wouldn't put the nightmare completely behind him, but at least he wouldn't have to look at it. 

Draco pulled on a dressing gown and limped through his room. Behind the door he heard muffled bickering. Harry and Ginny again. While he was glad not to be alone, he wasn't sure he could face Harry. 

Or Ginny, for that matter. She wasn't there, but she'd undoubtedly heard about all of it. He was about to head back to his bed when the bickering ceased.

His stomach growled in angry protest at his hesitation and Draco screwed up his courage, hoping that they were gone. Tentatively, he opened the door and peeked through the crack. 

Ginny and Harry's faces were mashed together. Harry's hands were up, but he wasn't stopping it, or pushing her away. Her face was red and puffy, eyes swollen. Swallowing hard, Draco noiselessly shut the door.

The noise alerted the two that Draco had seen and they knocked frantically and pushed against Draco's dead weight as he sat against the door. He sat his face in his hands as he sobbed just under the racket of Harry and Ginny trying to get inside, calling out apologies. 

\--

Draco dined in silence. 

Ginny had gone home, fleeing Draco's disappointed wrath. 

Harry sat contritely across from him. He'd wanted to say the right things, to try and explain that there hadn't been anything going on between he and Ginny and that the kiss just happened and that it was bad timing. But Draco was having none of it and had cast a silencing charm on him before tucking into his meal.

Though Harry could have easily reversed the spell, he'd decided to just let Draco have his way. 

Secretly, Draco was glad it had happened. It gave him ample excuse not to look Harry in the eye, and now he had something to be righteously angry about rather than focusing on his embarrassment over what Harry had seen. 

It was lonely, but he could deal with that. Draco could fixate on the feelings of betrayal and turn them into something tangible to hate, because everything else was too overwhelming.

When he was finished eating, Harry took Draco's plate and disappeared into the kitchen. Draco thought of a million things he wanted to scream at him, a plethora of hexes he'd like to throw at his retreating back, but ultimately, he felt too weary to do even that. 

Harry returned a few minutes later with a quill and parchment. He wrote, "It's not safe for me to be voiceless. If something happens, I might need my voice to warn you, or cast stronger spells. I won't speak to you, I promise."

Draco read the note and crumpled the paper and averted his eyes, turning to look at a portrait, feeling utterly miserable. "Maybe I just don't care anymore."

He closed his eyes at the feel of Harry's warm hand atop his. Draco's fingers were still curled into the paper, but they tightened at the contact. Swallowing his pain, Draco kept his hand there, withstanding each confusing emotion that surfaced with all of the strength he had left. He acknowledged that Harry was right with a nod, releasing him from having to maintain the curse. 

Harry ended the hex, but made no effort to speak. 

Draco released the parchment and withdrew his hand. 

After a beat, he left to watch the telly.

\--

Draco awoke to another grey day and decided that instead of cloistering himself in his bedroom, he would have a walk about the grounds. The entirety of the Wiltshire manor inside of the gate was under the Fidelius charm, and while he'd felt too skittish before to test this theory, boredom had shored up his reckless bravery. 

Besides, being a couch-bum was not becoming to a Malfoy, nor was it particularly flattering to his figure.

Outside, the late spring frost was hissing its foggy evaporation to the cresting sun, melting into heady dew. Draco twisted the side of his robe in one hand, bringing the hem up enough for him to launch into a run, expending pent up energy. 

Sitting day in and day out with Harry in the manor was unacceptable. The eminent twisting of comfort and resentment at Harry's presence was stifling; it made him want to scream in frustration. 

_Don't scream. I don't think I could bear it._

The words were icy and sharp in his chest like the raw gasps of chilly mid-morning air. Breath puffed from Draco's mouth in short billowing bursts. He hated that he was so winded after such a short run, but he supposed that he'd been locked away for months and was theoretically still convalescing. 

Further, he hated that he wasn't screaming at Harry, or at least finding his voice enough to tell him off, or to even ask for him to send someone else to keep watch over him. Making Harry go would be too final; it would end whatever niggling hope he had of.... 

Of what? 

There was a time and place between two people where things could work, and they were far beyond that grace period. Draco couldn't stand to even look at him, but couldn't make him leave.

As far as he could tell, Harry had little other than sympathetic looks for him.

Pity. That's what Harry had for him. Draco felt another blinding burst of antipathy build until he really couldn't stand it any longer. Standing next to the dripping hawthorn hedge, Draco stretched out his arms and screamed to the heavens. 

The bush rustled in response, dropping a few frost-covered red berries and leaves. Draco looked to the manor for a reaction, but only saw a curtain in Harry's window drop and sway. 

Fisting his robe, Draco took another run around the manor.

\--

Sitting on the bank of what had once been a koi pond, Draco felt a little like a reprobate juvenile who had fought with his parents and had runaway just outside of the door. It was silly to sit here as if it meant anything and he knew Harry was probably keeping a beady eye on him between sending the owls flying overhead. 

Harry was in all probability trying to find someone else to baby sit him. 

The idea made Draco feel sick and a little dizzy. Something vaguely chest-related twinged painfully as he imagined trying to get used to some other Order member. 

Who would they send? Lupin? Draco knew he could never feel safe around a werewolf. 

Being infected would just make this rotten life complete.

Brushing off the remnant dirt and twigs as he stood, his paranoia rose. As he tore into the Manor, his anxiety level ratcheted up as he heard the whooshing of the Floo. 

Harry's replacement was here already. 

Dear God.

Draco grabbed his stomach, feeling it burn and twist. He doubled over with it, the ache ripping through his body. But he wasn't going to hide out from it like he had all day. He was going to go in and see this. 

He was going to watch Harry leave him.

"Thanks," he heard Harry say.

"It's not a problem at all. You're doing me a favor." 

Was that Lupin's voice? Of course this was a favor; a huge upgrade for a werewolf's living conditions.

"You're sure you don't mind?"

_I mind. I fucking mind. But no one ever fucking asks me_.

"No, really. This works out well for me. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with..."

Lupin broke off as Draco flew around the corner, breathless, eyes red and clutching his side. His fury had built to the point where his vision tunneled. The recipients of his fury, Harry Potter and Remus Lupin, stood there blinking at him. He opened his mouth, not sure if he was going to vomit or scream, but he was interrupted by a small "mew."

Draco grabbed the doorframe and blinked a few times, bending over to catch his breath, trying to get his vision to resolve.

"...with all of the kittens," Lupin finished. His eyes were wide and alarmed and his hand on his wand pocket. 

"All right, Malfoy?" asked Harry. In his arms was a squirming rat-thing. It took Draco a few more blinks to resolve the long black tail and sleek white (but sooty) body and dark ears. 

"Kit...ten?" asked Draco. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Is that for Lupin to eat?"

"I think that's my cue to get back," said Remus, looking away from Draco. Whatever look of irritation Remus wasn't giving him, Harry shot at him. 

Draco sneered in retort. 

"It was lovely to see you as always, Harry. Malfoy." Remus nodded in Draco's direction without looking at him.

"What, you're not staying? Not taking over Potter's duties?" Draco stood up straighter. He was relieved, but had been so sure of what was going on. 

"Is that what you want?" Harry asked. He dropped his gaze and stroked a finger over the kitten's small head. In return, it clawed his cheek. 

Remus stood rooted to the spot, shooting a quizzical look at Harry before hesitantly eyeing Draco for answers. "I really was just bringing the kitten, but if you need me to stay..."

Feeling horridly on the spot, Draco stared down at the floor, thinking _no_ so hard he was giving himself a headache. But he couldn't say it. He couldn't force his lazy tongue to move over his resistant lips, to part his teeth; he couldn't get his vocal cords to agree and his body was only capable of a slow, shaking exhale. It was his moment of truth, the time where he had to make it right and the moment was fading before he could even react.

He'd run all the way here on the pretense that Harry was going to leave and now he couldn't shake out of it to even answer a simple and obvious question. 

"No, it's fine, Remus." Harry didn't sound pleased, but at least he wasn't leaving. 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yeah. I'll let you know, all right? Thanks again, I think the _kitten_ will be good company." The last part of the sentence was said with venom and Draco shrank from Harry's irritation, even if he had no idea what Harry was so angry about. 

After a few more parting words, Remus left. Harry stood in front of Draco, petting the kitten. Draco could hear the kitten's machinelike purring and tilted his head up to eye the shaking little thing. 

Harry took it as prompting to speak. 

"I'm sorry you don't like me, Malfoy, but that's too damned bad. No one else can protect you as well as I can and we both know it."

When Draco met Harry's eyes, he couldn't begin to fathom what the expression meant. It was somewhere between pity and rage and the mingled emotions of apology and pain. Draco wanted to slap the look off of his face, to watch it give way to the rage he knew was in arm's reach.

When he went to swing, instead he grabbed Harry's hair and yanked his face close and breathed over his astonished face before kissing him demandingly. 

It was all teeth and ire, he bit Harry's bottom lip out of sheer spiteful memory of seeing Ginny's face pressed against Harry's like this. Draco wanted to bite, rend, tear, own. He wanted Harry all to himself, to consume him and be consumed by him in ways he couldn't even begin to express. He just wanted to drown in him, to hide somewhere inside of Harry, to know that he would always, always be there, no matter what else happened. 

All at once, Harry's hand was on his chest and he was shoved back against the doorframe. Draco's head made a hollow thud against the wood and he felt the reverberations of pain that echoed in his ear. 

His shoulders hitched up as his body welled up into a sob as he looked weakly at Harry who had turned to set the kitten down.

Harry ended up tossing the kitten onto the armchair as he wheeled around, expression tense with concern. "Shit! Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't know I... pushed you that hard..."

Something inside of Draco unfurled, uncoiling like an angry snake backed into a corner. He felt the jolt of adrenaline as he made the choice to fight rather than try to flee. 

This time when Draco swung at Harry, he connected with his jaw. Deftly, Harry ducked, using momentum to drive him forward to grab Draco around the waist, tackling him against the wall.

Even though it was futile, Draco beat on Harry's back as Harry clung to him. 

"I'm sorry, Draco. I'm sorry. I would never hurt you on purpose. I'm so sorry," he whispered. 

Harry cupped the back of Draco's head, touching it lightly and carefully as Draco slowed his abuse, finally just sagging against Harry.

Draco pulled Harry's hand away from his head and examined it, curious as to whether there was blood or not. The spot still hurt, but the skin was not broken. Everything felt broken, though, and all Draco could really do was lean against Harry and wonder when he'd be shoved away next. 

"It hurt," he said between frantic breaths.

"I'm sorry. I know. I'm so sorry. I just wanted to put the kitten down." Harry's hands slid over Draco's back so fervently that it warmed him.

"No, not just... that.... You... and Ginny." Draco's sinuses were painfully full and his face hot. His nose ran onto Harry's shirt and as much as he worried about Harry thinking it was disgusting, that he was disgusting, there wasn't much he could do. 

Harry had seen him worse off than this.

Harry's movements stopped and he squeezed Draco so tightly that he couldn't move or breathe, which was almost a relief as it freed him from the burden of continuing with the wracking sobs. "I'm sorry."

"Why didn't... she... you didn't stop... and..." Draco was feeling faint from lack of breathing and how overwhelming his emotions were. He'd always stopped them, iced them out before they could take him over like this. He'd never wanted anyone to see him this weak, but here he was, weak again in front of his erstwhile enemy. It was humiliating, and Draco knew the true depths of that emotion.

"I don't know."

Draco started to push away. He wasn't going to expose himself like this only to have Harry thoughtlessly try to blow him off.

"Mal--Draco, I don't know why I let her kiss me. I don't know why she would try to kiss me with you in there. Maybe it was shock, or maybe it was just... you confuse me. You've always confused me and challenged me and pushed me. I thought... I thought after the war that nothing would shake me. That after seeing friends and foes falling that nothing and no one would ever reach me again and yet..." Harry's voice trailed off and Draco was stunned to see Harry's expression just as torn as his own. 

Draco cupped his face, memorizing his flushed cheeks, his ravaged lips, the way his glasses sat askew on his face and how the skin around his scar bled white when his face was red. He tilted his face up and brushed his lips over the rough skin, feeling Harry's hot breath on his chin and neck. Putting his lips together against the scar, Draco pressed kisses along each jagged centimeter, teasing his tongue out to taste the salty sweat as Harry clung to him.

He kissed between Harry's brows and then pressed his cheek to Harry's forehead. His face felt feverish and Draco was certain that his temperature had risen. Out of all of the times he'd been told he was loved, all of the words and hollow reassurances he'd once received, this felt the most like it. 

It wasn't flowers and it wasn't chocolate or walking off into the dazzling sunset, but it was his, and maybe Harry was his, if he could get over himself and his sickening denial. Tentatively, Draco brought his arms up from his sides and wrapped them gently around Harry's back. At first, he just held them there, his arms tense and ready to pull away should Harry bark at him to do so, but as Harry's arms tightened around him, crossing possessively over his back, Draco followed suit and hid his face against Harry's neck. 

In spite of the intense proximity of their bodies and the strength with which Harry was holding him, Draco could finally breathe again.

\--

Draco awoke to something sharp and wet on his nose that tore him out of a dream about horses. Opening his eyes, there was a fuzzy face and a fishy smell. Then it started to purr. He grabbed the kitten and pulled it back on his chest to really look at it. It mewed at him and he watched it curiously. Having never had a pet, he found it interesting to see this tiny, furry face staring back at him looking so needy. 

"He needs a name." Harry was laying on his side next to Draco, still in his boxers and t-shirt. 

"Scarhead," Draco suggested. He was similarly attired and judged by the slant of light that it was still fairly early in the morning. They hadn't slept long, and Draco was resistant to waking up completely just yet. Still, his answer made him grin to himself.

"Don't call him that. Don't call _me_ that, you git." Harry slid his fingers over the glossy body of the brown and white cat. "He has Siamese markings. Maybe we could call him... Siam."

"Potty." Draco's grin broadened and he wriggled closer to Harry. The night before had been lush and slow with Harry taking his time sliding his hands over Draco's body, learning to appreciate it. They hadn't done much other than feel and snog, and Draco found that he enjoyed Harry's leisurely pace.

"Would you be serious?" Harry's hand stilled on the kitten. "No jokes about my godfather."

"Wouldn't dream of it. How about Pothead?" Gently, Draco rubbed his index finger under the kitten's chin, charmed at how it stretched and moved into the affection.

Harry traced his fingers from the soft fur over Draco's finger and then caressed the back of his hand. "How about Meezer?" 

"Pot plant." Draco closed his eyes as Harry's hand moved up his arm, the pads of his fingers traced over his forearm to tickle-touch the crook of his elbow. 

"Now you're trying too hard." Harry rested the side of his face on Draco's shoulder and breathed lightly against his neck. 

"Pot Noodle." Again the touch was feather light, and Draco, like the kitten, tilted his head up to make his neck more available for Harry's breath. Or his tongue. Or his lips.

"Noodle's a good name," Harry whispered, nuzzling his nose to Draco's neck. 

It wasn't a good name at all, but Draco wasn't going to argue with Harry nuzzling his neck.

Scooping up the kitten, Draco set Noodle on the floor beside the bed. Draco rubbed his chin on top of Harry's head, feeling his breath catch at how intimate it felt to be touched like this. 

Harry fingered Draco's ribcage and down to his sharp hipbones. Harry had dodged his cock so many times the night before that it was driving Draco mad with his want for Harry to touch him. As Harry's hand moved down to the top of his thigh, Draco moved his legs further apart. 

His fingers swirled on his inner thigh, the top of his hand barely brushed his balls and Draco bit down on his crooked finger to keep from moaning. As wary as Harry could be about sex, Draco didn't want to scare him off by being loud, but he wanted so much to be touched, to know that Harry would accept every part of him.

On top of that, he wanted to suck Harry's cock, to have him fill his mouth and take it, to make it his own. To fill it with come. Draco's cock jumped at the idea of Harry coming in his mouth, in his arse, to fuck him and leave part of himself behind, that piece of Harry that Draco would keep. 

Harry's tongue dragged velvet warmth in a cooling stripe up the side of his neck and then along his jaw. Tilting his head downward, Draco caught his lips and kissed him deeply, merging tongue to tongue and mouth to mouth without fury and without pity, but with need and curiosity. 

Reaching for Harry, Draco snaked his hand up under Harry's shirt, feeling the suppleness of his chest as he brushed his thumb over Harry's nipple. Since Harry didn't fight off the touch, Draco squeezed it lightly and, delighted in the soft moan it elicited from Harry, Draco did it again and Harry's hand stopped on Draco's inner thigh where he had been casually stroking him. 

"Touch me," Draco finally said as he turned onto his side to face Harry. He shook in anticipation of Harry having a fit and leaving, but instead, his inquisitive fingers brushed over his cock, feeling it through his silken boxers. As quickly as his hand had been on it, he pulled it away. 

It was difficult for Draco not to groan. Dolohov and Carrows and other random Death Eaters had tried to get him hard and had often failed. For Harry, getting aroused was almost automatic, but Harry didn't seem terribly interested in his prick. Instead, he brought his hands up to Draco's chest and he repeated what Draco had done with his thumbs and the pinching. 

Draco was almost mad with want and pressed harder against Harry, feeling how Harry's cock answered the call and poked against him. 

Draco wanted to scream _why_? But he knew why; Harry was trembling against him, scared.

For a heady moment, Draco had to congratulate himself on evidently being as scary as Voldemort, but it wasn't exactly helping his case. He tried frotting against Harry, trying to get any sort of friction he could, but Harry pulled his hips back. The move wasn't dramatic, but it definitely made the point. 

As much as Draco wanted to ask Harry about it, he was too afraid of the answer. After snogging for a while longer with no change in Harry's attitude about touching or being touched, and without any encouragement that there _would be_ a change, Draco pulled away and tossed off in the shower.

\--

By the end of day three, Draco was getting quite frustrated that Harry wasn't moved by his hormones to do _something_. As much as he loved the extensive foreplay, he was getting desperate. Part of him wondered what the big deal was. They'd shagged before, but then, Draco had pretty much pushed Harry down and sat on him. 

Surely it couldn't have been a question of lust. He and Harry were nearly always snogging or otherwise touching one another, but something was holding him back and Draco was afraid that the answer was going to be that Harry couldn't accept his cock. 

Gender and sexuality wasn't something Draco had thought on that much other than to try and hide it. It seemed to him that Harry wanted to snog him and wanted everything about Draco except his cock. He fretted that Harry was neither gay nor bisexual but that he'd just found himself in the predicament of loving and wanting another man. 

Draco sighed heavily and walked down to the Malfoy library, curious as to what he might find there on the topic. He suspected that there wouldn't be much. His father had been more interested in dark arts than queer issues, but Draco was grasping at straws. 

Noodle followed Draco wherever he went in the house. He'd never had a familiar before, and he wasn't sure if Noodle counted since he was very much an ordinary kitten, but Draco imagined it would be like this; an animal following him around, getting into whatever he was doing and splaying himself over books as Draco tried to read. 

Not finding anything to his liking, Draco lay down in the middle of the circular room. Rows upon rows of books spiraled upwards to the second story. He'd had to levitate in order to view each one. Now he was staring at the circular molding and the large bubble candle chandelier above him. 

When he was younger, he would often lay here and think about how small he was amongst all of these words and all of this knowledge. It made him feel a part of something bigger, and set him to the idealistic goal of reading every book. Because of the peculiarities of his situation and his life, and perhaps a bit of laziness on his part, he'd never made a dent. 

Now he wondered if wisdom could be gleaned by proximity. Perhaps these books with all of their words would suffuse him with the right ones to say to Harry; the incantation to make things seem less impossible. 

Per the _Daily Prophet_ delivered that morning, yet another Death Eater had been apprehended, reminding Draco of a grim approaching deadline. Once the Death Eaters had been rounded up, he would no longer need protection and Harry would no longer need to hide. Once exposed to the outside world, he wasn't sure he could continue to captivate Harry for snogging. 

His mind played the cruel trick of summoning the memory of Ginny kissing Harry, which reinforced his suspicion that proximity might be the only thing making him particularly attractive. Once they were out in the real world and he was allowed to see other people and interact with his friends, Draco would be left behind still feeling scared and alone. 

Draco pulled his arms over his face as if it could block out whatever was causing him these flurries of suspicion and self-recrimination. Noodle took advantage of his reclined position and hopped onto his chest, purring and trying to wedge his head under Draco's hand. He stroked his head and tried to concentrate on the comfort Noodle provided. 

"Mrew?" Noodle pulled away, and then trotted off. 

Sitting up, Draco turned to confront the capricious cat but instead saw Harry leaning against the doorway with his head tilted to the side. "Hiding out?"

"Somewhere I never dreamed you'd look," Draco retorted.

Harry rolled his eyes and looked up at the rows of books and on to the ceiling. "You always seemed the chair type to me. I didn't expect to find you on the floor."

Noting Harry's line of sight, Draco asked, "How long have you been here?" Caught on the floor staring absently at the ceiling-- how embarrassing.

"Not long." Harry's gaze dropped back to Draco. He pushed off of the doorframe with his shoulder and crossed to where Draco was and dropped to sit cross-legged next to Draco. 

Everything seemed so perfectly easy and natural to Harry. Even his movements were so simple, so unquestioning. Draco wondered if he'd ever experienced a moment of doubt in his life. "I just came for a book. I thought I might read some. The telly is getting repetitive."

"That it does. I worried you might be avoiding me." Harry nodded and pressed his hand over Draco's belly and he moved it in slow, soothing circles. 

One of Draco's favorite simple touches was this gentle belly rub, feeling the soft trace of fingers, and the sweetness of the affection. Draco stretched out on the floor, raising his arms up over his head to play paw at the air. He didn't have an answer for that, as it wasn't true, but it wasn't untrue, either. He wanted to learn to speak to Harry, but as he felt incapable of doing so had driven him into hiding. 

Harry humm'ed at the lack of response and said, "I meant to tell you last night that I noticed your back is clear of scars. Does it still hurt?"

"No. Not really. It gets a little sore sometimes, but I think that's just because I'm tense." Draco closed his eyes, deciding he didn't want to see the look on Harry's face over that remark. 

"I could massage your back."

"You could." Draco wondered if that was a good idea or not. Harry didn't seem to have a problem touching him everywhere _but_ his cock, but that wasn't exactly a good thing. Still, he would take what he could get and toss off later. 

"Unless you don't want me to." Harry's hand withdrew and Draco opened his eyes again.

"I want you to, just... not right here."

Harry nodded. "On the bed then?"

Already Draco could feel his cock stir with interest. 

Maybe Harry wouldn't notice or care if he humped the bed. "Yeah, on the bed."


	4. Chapter 4

In Draco's bedroom, he'd dared to pull all of his clothes off, but slipped under his dark sheets to be considerate of Harry. Bringing the pillow under his face, he rested his cheek on the navy sheets and plumped it with his hands beneath. 

Harry had excused himself to the bathroom as Draco started stripping and came out with lotion. Draco would've pointed out there was lotion in the nightstand, but he worried what sort of threatening images that might conjure.

To Harry's credit, he warmed the lotion in his hands before clapping them down on his shoulder blades and distributing the lotion over his shoulders. Draco groaned as Harry's thumbs pushed along the muscle just below the turn of his shoulder. It was a muscle that tended to tense up quite a bit on Draco when he was stressed and immediately Harry started working on the knots.

His thumb pressed against the soreness creating a delicious release in the muscle that bridged the gap of sharp pain and loosening stretch. Pressing his face against the pillow to muffle the moans, Draco pumped very slowly against the bed. It was more of an experiment than getting off as he still wasn't quite hard yet. Harry didn't seem to notice, which pleased Draco just fine. 

Harry's fingers hooked over Draco's shoulders and his thumbs swept inward, squeezing in on the base of his neck and the top of his spine. Walking his thumbs along the back of his neck, Draco heard and felt the small pops of bones presumably shifting into place, or joints clicking together. Draco wasn't entirely sure of the mechanics of it, but it felt brilliant.

Draco pressed his palms flat against the headboard and flexed his shoulders a few times, feeling the improved range of motion. He writhed under the massage as Harry moved down his spine with his palms, pressing his fingers deep into the tissue as he went. 

Somewhere in Draco's shifting, he could feel the sheet moving over the crest of his arse. The cool air was warmed by Harry's body and Draco pushed harder against the mattress. He kept his face buried in the pillow even though it stifled his heavy breathing. He found himself at a sudden lack for oxygen as his spine popped and his cock ground into the mattress, running through the warm dots of precome he left on the sheets.

Spine popping, Draco grew more daring, flexing his thighs as he ground his knees into the bed. Were he not so aroused and so focused on getting off, he might've been ashamed of how obvious he was being, practically forcing his arse into Harry's face. Sometimes, he wanted to just take charge as he had when they did fuck. He wanted to just throw him down and sit on him again, or tease his hole with his fingers, watching the expressions change as he relaxed enough to take Draco. 

All of that seemed so far out of his reach that it was barely worth speculating on. Instead, he concentrated on Harry's hands moving down his tailbone. The hard press of Harry's palms on the topmost part of his arse pinned him to the bed, ending all but the most minimal of movements. Taking it as a sign to stop, Draco stilled and waited breathlessly and disappointed for Harry to move up his back again. 

But he didn't. Harry's hands vanished from his back and Draco cursed himself until he heard the tell-tale wheeze of the lotion bottle. Harry's hands squelched and slicked together a moment and then he resumed his massage at Draco's tailbone. 

Draco was shocked and aroused to find that instead of moving up, Harry's hands moved down and he kneaded Draco's arse. He filled his hands with the cheeks and squeezed them almost to the point of pain. Harry moved his hands in opposing circular motions and Draco felt mortified and excited about what Harry was seeing. 

As his cheeks split apart repeatedly for Harry, Draco grabbed the pillow again, holding it tightly. His whole body was tense, all the way to his curling toes. The insides of his arse cheeks moved together, creating a luscious friction between them.

Unable to stand it anymore, Draco pushed his knees into the bed again and squirmed against the sheets. Maybe Harry would get weirded out or turned off, but Draco was becoming increasingly desperate to get off. 

Tentatively, Harry worked his fingers down between Draco's cheeks. Unable to control himself Draco gasped for air and turned his cheek against the pillow. Harry kept Draco spread open now and caressed around his hole, arousing the thrill of soft tickling sensation around it. It made Draco feel sensual in a part of his body that had been so often abused. 

Draco raised his hips, trying to goad Harry into penetrating him, if even with just one finger. The rubbing was gone from his cock so he wrapped his hand around it and pulled. 

For a moment, Harry froze and Draco thought he might well scream. Or cry. He quickened the pace on his cock, hoping to at least get off with Harry feeling his arse. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the idea that Harry was looking at his hole, that he could see it, that he'd been inside of it before. 

Coming to life again, Harry caressed Draco's hole with more pressure, carefully touching and prodding each bit of it. He caressed it again a few times, dragging his fingers over it until he finally pushed two fingers in. 

Immediately, Draco pushed into the invasion, wanting to feel Harry's fingers as deeply inside of him as they could go. Harry experimented with angles, brushing Draco in different places, leaving Draco to try and adjust his hips to get him to the right spot inside of him. His hand was a blur on his cock, and he chanced a look over his shoulder to see Harry's face. 

Harry's expression was aroused, but focused and Draco couldn't help but stare at him, thinking about how Harry was looking at him, that he was seeing the tiny mouth clinging to his fingers as he pushed in and out. The idea, along with the pressure from Harry being inside of him made Draco's body tense. He felt the shuddering need of his arousal cloud his vision and sent his body into tense spasms as come spit onto the sheets. 

Draco collapsed against the bed, dropping into his own come, but Harry's fingers kept working inside of him, wriggling and teasing him. He was about to object it as unnecessary, but then he heard the soft pat of skin-on-skin-- the distinctive sound of wanking. 

Propping his head on the pillow, Draco curled his torso around so he could watch Harry's hand coyly under his boxers. Just the shining tip poked out of the top, but otherwise his hand moved under the flannel fabric.

Harry's face was flushed and his neck muscles strained. His glasses half clouded up and he glistened slightly in the low light of the room. All Draco could do was watch and feel the sneaking tendrils of his cock firming up again at Harry's fingers probing him and how much he was getting off on it. It didn't take long before Harry was choking out his own orgasm. He hunched forward as if he could hide it from Draco, but Draco was watching too keenly not to see the spatter of silvery come on his chest. 

When Harry had finished, he pulled his fingers out of Draco and looked disconcerted. Draco sat up and pulled Harry into his arms and kissed him slowly, rubbing his bottom lip to Harry's and clung, fretting he'd leave.

"Was that all right?" asked Harry after breaking the kiss.

"Perfect," Draco whispered against his lips.

"Good." Harry pulled Draco tighter against him and rolled onto his back, pulling Draco with him, leaving him covered by Draco's torso.

Draco wanted to ask Harry if he enjoyed it, but decided that the answer might hurt. He decided to take satisfaction that he'd gotten Harry off, which was as clear an indicator as any that he'd enjoyed it on some level. He kissed Harry again and then rested his ear over Harry's heart to listen to its rapid beating.

\--

"Get up, Malfoy." 

Draco jolted from dreamland, tumbling back to reality a jumble of nerves and paranoid. Something was wrong. He could tell by the terse way Harry spoke to him and the way he loomed over the bed. The light was behind him, obfuscating his expression. 

"Is something wrong?" Draco blushed after Harry jerked away the covers to rouse him faster, revealing his nudity. He grabbed for the sheet but Harry yanked it back and threw a black robe at him. 

"Yes. We need to go." Harry's voice sounded choked, heavy with something other than panic, although that was creeping on the edges. He didn't seem in as much of a hurry as he wanted to be terse.

Pulling the robe over his head, Draco pulled it modestly down over his body before standing up and then pulling on his briefs that had landed with the robe. He noticed that Harry was similarly attired. If it hadn't been mid-morning with the sun up, Draco would've thought that they were going to sneak off.

Harry looked rather grim by posture, but it wasn't until Draco smoothed out his robes and looked at his face that Draco saw the red blotchiness of his complexion. He'd seen that miserable expression before. That day he'd confronted Harry after Sirius had died he was affected by the same melancholia. "What...?"

"Ginny. Was.... killed," said Harry. His eyes glistened, but he pressed his lips together and looked determinedly at some point in the room, mentally distancing himself from what he was saying.

Draco reached to pull him into an embrace, but Harry turned briskly to leave the room. 

"We're Flooing to the Weasleys's now."

Wrapping his vacant arms around himself, Draco followed, the billowing waves of guilt mounting with every step down the stairs that he took. He'd driven Ginny from this house out of some notion of making Harry Potter fall in love with him and now she was dead. 

It was his fault, and Harry knew it.

\--

Keeping his head bowed so his hair curtained his face, Draco avoided looking at any of the Weasleys, feeling their silent accusations. He'd mucked with the wonder couple and she'd gone home. He knew she was in danger. He'd saved her from it himself. Not only had he not wanted Ginny for himself, he had kept her from who she really _should_ be with. They all hated him, he knew it. He could _feel_ it as tangible as the scratchy wool of the formal black robe and the uncomfortable stench of come he could still smell even though he'd tried to wash it off his belly in the bathroom. 

The area felt scratched raw and he could feel it prickle with each exhale as he counted breaths to keep himself from getting overwhelmed during the short funeral ceremony. She would be interred with the other Weasleys in the family plot. 

They all had such warm family memories to relive, all of which seemed to bring smiles to their faces through the tears and misery. Ginny as a toddler asking precocious questions, mysteries of magic all her own, her love of daisies, the pranks she'd pulled with the twins.

Draco wanted to take Harry's hand, but every time he looked at him, he received a glare in return. 

It was fair enough. He'd pushed Ginny away after the kiss. She'd barely been anything to him other than someone to talk to Harry about, and someone to make Harry jealous with. He considered her a friend, in spite of how he'd used her, at least up until she kissed Harry. 

That he was still angry with her over such a minor thing solidified his self-loathing and he found he could bear himself or this living area no longer.

The Burrow had been put under a Fidelius Charm, same as the Malfoy Manor. He was free to walk the grounds and no more, and after the attack, presumably made by her brother Percy as an ill-conceived retribution for what he perceived as being mistreated by his family. Draco had never seen him amongst the Death Eaters but had heard rumor that he was an inside man at the Ministry.

"No Harry, it was a quick kill. Just the Killing Curse and she was gone." Fred recounted the tale as best he could. She'd been just in front of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes when it happened. As the Weasleys had figured it, Percy had been waiting for the twins to come out but found Ginny instead. 

Draco secretly wondered if it had anything at all to do with familial issues or if there wasn't a vying for a better position with the remnant Death Eaters. Percy had always been ambitious, and what better way to demonstrate your loyalty than by killing your own blood? 

He knew a few old and very dark magics that he wouldn't mind setting after him, but Draco was pointedly not allowed on the family discussion. Nor was Harry, who sat sullenly by the fire, contemplating his hands on his lap. Draco crossed to him, but Harry gave him such a look of intense disgust that he took a step back and decided to go for a walk.

Outside, the sun was spring-bright, coloring the trees in pale shades of green as sprouts opened to salute the sun. Everything seemed to be filled with the promise of a new beginning; not at all your stereotypical London day. Seeing a respectably large Buddelia bush in shades of pink and red, Draco made his way to it to toy with the blossoms. 

He didn't know how long he'd been walking around and toying with the flowers, but it must have been a good while as he heard the snap of twigs and crush of grass. Shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun, he saw Molly Weasley making her way to him.

"Mr Malfoy," said Mrs. Weasley, her tone edgy. Draco had overheard her stern voice directed at others, but this was something angrier, but sadder as well. 

Inwardly, Draco cringed that she was going to call him out for blocking her daughter from happiness both with Harry and himself, and relegating her to this early death. He smoothed his thumb over the tiny cones of blossoms, bracing himself to hear what she'd say.

"It's my fault, you know," she confided. 

Draco shook his head. "No, it's my fault. She kissed Harry and..." he frowned, she probably didn't know about any of that, nor did she want to.

"I know, Malf--Draco. May I call you Draco?" He'd been about to correct her, but since she asked and he'd just killed her daughter, he figured she could take liberties. 

He nodded.

"Draco, she felt horrid about kissing Harry. She knew it was out of line. She worried about it-- about you-- for weeks."

Draco wondered how _that_ was supposed to help. He started picking small blossoms off of the flowering cone. "Yes, well...."

What else was there to say? Mrs. Weasley took the branch from Draco. He shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched. 

"She wanted to explain to you that Harry was just having doubts. She thought kissing him would show that there was a lack of passion between them, that it wasn't the same as..." Molly trailed off, looking like she felt as awkward as he did about the subject. She nodded once to establish that he understood and cut to the chase. "She hated that _that_ was what you awoke to after all you'd been through."

"That was a silly assumption to make and a reckless way to test someone." The idea of kissing Harry to prove to him he didn't like girls made sense in a Ginny sort of way, but Draco didn't approve, even post-mortem. 

"That's our Ginny," said Mrs. Weasley with a genuine fondness. "Things are as how she sees them, even when they're not. She acts-- acted-- on her own, often wrong opinions. Today she decided that the threat was for all intents and purposes over and demanded to be let out to walk to her brothers' shop."

Draco very much wanted to call Ginny a lackwit, but he couldn't see that going over well. She wasn't as big a prize to kill as Harry and Draco were, but she definitely had a target on her back, as she well knew since she'd been captured before. She definitely didn't need to be popping about. "I wish she hadn't."

Mrs. Weasley dragged him into an unwilling hug, and he was reminded of Ginny. After the initial shock wore off, he relaxed and patted her back in a "there, there" motion, not sure what to do about this predicament. She sobbed until his shoulder was wet, just another petty discomfort in this already awkward situation. 

"I just want her back. I want to not have allowed her to run off without protection."

Not knowing what else to do, Draco whispered, "It's not your fault. There was no stopping her."

"She was really happy for you and Harry. She wants-- wanted-- you both to be happy." Mrs. Weasley whispered into Draco's chest

Draco thought about explaining to her just how unlikely it was that he would be happy. It was a fleeting emotion, anyway. He'd like to have a more solid goal. Vengeance seemed worthy enough. 

"I wish I could've made her happy."

"You did, Draco. You did. You may not think so, but you made her happy just being yourself. She loved you. More than you understand." Mrs. Weasley looked up at him, her eyes swollen and red. She pushed his hair back and nodded up to him. "Don't ever doubt that."

Though Draco knew the sentiment was meant to cheer him up, he thought he might be sick with remorse. Everything he'd felt towards her, the anger and betrayal seemed so utterly useless now. 

She'd loved him and he couldn't love her back. He'd fixated on Harry and now he'd lost everything. Closing his eyes, he nodded, feeling the emotions rise up through his cheeks. Squeezing his eyes shut, he determined to keep the tears from spilling over.

With the warm, wet dribble sliding from the corner of his eye, he looked miserably up to the heavens and nodded. He knew he should say that he loved her too, that that was the right thing to say and it was really the least he could do. He could almost feel the inklings of the emotion, but they were strangled by his doubt, by the time he'd spent hating her. 

Draco _had_ doubted her. He'd been the betrayer. Sniffing, he nodded again and looked down at Molly. He was at a complete loss for words, but said the only thing he could think of: "I'm sorry."

She squeezed him again, but he wriggled free and peered around the yard uncomfortably and muttered, "I have to go," and flung himself back to the house to Floo back to the Manor.

\--

"What are you doing?" Harry snapped. 

Draco glared at Harry; his wand was mid swish as the bare necessities of his clothing rolled up and fitted themselves into a knapsack. "Packing."

Harry was packing manually, throwing his clothing into his own bag, each item punched into the bag like an assault, as if he could vent his anger through packing alone. Or so it seemed to Draco. "I told you, I'll be back in a couple of days. You are not coming with me. You are going to wait here."

"No." Though Draco was seething with as much rage as Harry was, he channeled his fury into his spells, each flutter of clothing landed with precision and focus. Petulant though he was, he hadn't been a complete cock-up with magic. Maybe he wasn't as fast as Harry in dueling, but he knew dark magic and he had more practice with it. Harry would need him in order to do this. 

"I'm not asking," Harry shot back.

Draco didn't answer but summoned food from downstairs, bundling it in with his clothing. This was the most they'd spoken since the funeral, and Draco felt they'd said more than enough already. He wasn't going to sit idly by while Ginny's murderer was on the loose. He'd been scared before, but if nothing else, he now knew he needed to take a stand against something; even if it was just Percy Weasley and a band of rogue Death Eaters.

"Look Malfoy, it's just for family to deal with Percy." Harry spat Percy's name like fire from his tongue, like he couldn't wait to get rid of the word. "The mood you're in, you'll kill him and the family doesn't want that."

"You're not a Weasley either, _Potter_." Draco had a few choice things to say about the violence of Harry's mood, but he didn't want to speak to Harry right now. He just wanted to focus on this one thing, this one true thing he needed to do to make him feel at peace, as if he could somehow call him and Ginny even, as if retribution was going to solve anything.

" _They_ see me as family," said Harry tightly.

Draco turned his back on Harry to double-check his bag, looking for extra space where he could stash more socks, just in case. "Funny, you were just as on the outside of that family meeting as I was. I don't think you're invited."

Bristling, Harry was on the edge of snapping, his veins were standing out and his face was bright purple-red. "I don't care. I belong with them and you do not."

Turning around to face Harry, Draco stared him down. In a flash of anger resulting in the need to not only inflict pain on Harry, but twist the knife, he said, "I was the one Ginny was in love with in the end. Not you. Me. I have more of a right to--"

Draco wasn't even finished when Harry launched himself at him. In response, Draco dropped the bag, blood pumping eagerly through his veins. He was gagging for a fight, even one he had no hope of winning. 

He didn't care who he was attacking, so long as he got to fight.

Draco threw one arm up to block and punched the side of Harry's head as he felt the punishing blows first to his arm then lower, beating against his chest. For a moment, he had hold of one of Harry's wrists, allowing Draco to get in a hard punch that missed its goal of Harry's jaw and instead slammed into Harry's sternum. 

It felt like his hand was going to crack, he thought he heard something snap and his pinky throbbed, but Draco couldn't think about that now. 

Harry punched his cheek, sending his face to the other side. Draco punched back blindly, feeling the satisfying crunch of Harry's glasses. The glasses hit the floor with a skittering rattle as Draco glared at Harry, seeing how the nose guard had caught Harry's skin and dragged a cut along his cheek. 

He shifted under Harry's greater weight. He was pinned down under Harry who straddled him, keeping his legs out of the contest. Being held down made his punches lack some of the conviction he would have liked for them to have, but as he managed a hard crack across Harry's jaw, he sneered his satisfaction at the grunt of pain.

Draco was just gearing up for another monumental swing when he felt thumbs at his windpipe. Immediately, his hands went to Harry's wrists and he clawed and tried to twist them as Harry throttled him. He glared up at Harry, seeing no mercy in his expression. Though he braced his feet to the floor and bucked his hips in a desperate effort to dislodge Harry, he couldn't unseat him.

Worse yet, Harry had started slamming Draco head against the hardwood floor. Draco saw stars and blackness started to edge in on his vision. He was left with nothing to look at but Harry's overwrought face. 

After all he'd been through, changing sides and the unbearable tortures; he found this fate of dying at the literal hands of Harry Potter too ironic. He wanted to laugh, but there simply wasn't enough breath to manage it. Everything was starting to turn bright and fade into shades of white. He grinned sardonically as his vision faded.

"No." 

The breathless word from Harry's mouth was so achingly familiar. It took him back to sixth year when he was warm slick from his own blood after Harry had hexed him. 

No Snape to rescue him this time. 

He felt the hands slip from his throat, but it was too late. Everything was drifting away so peacefully and Draco couldn't even make himself be angry about it. 

He mouthed, "I love you."

\--

It was dead dark and utterly silent and Draco pondered the merits of whether this would be heaven or hell. When he lifted his head and felt the hard pounding pain, he decided that it was definitely hell. He sat back again and brought his hand up to his face. 

He had to stop passing out or he was going to get a reputation. 

"They found him."

The startle Harry gave him made his pulse race. He opened his mouth to speak, but his lips were numb. He tasted the remnants of potion and licked his deadened mouth to see if he could decipher what it was. He had a frightening familiarity with healing potions, but his head was too full of wool to crack this one. 

There was an aftertaste of vanilla, which told him it was store-bought and one of the better ones. He was relieved that Harry hadn't made it. Up until sixth year, he'd been hopeless in potions. The reminiscence made him smile.

"I thought that might make you happy."

Draco sighed, obviously his grin was misconstrued but he'd never had much luck communicating with Harry in the first place. It was pathetically par for the course. 

He shrugged.

"You were right. The Weasleys don't see me as part of the family... and I would've killed him."

In response, Draco nodded and turned his head to the direction of Harry's voice. After a moment, his eyes adjusted enough so that he could make out a winking reflection from Harry's glasses.

"I guess life in Azkaban is better. Makes death seem easy to see what those poor buggers are left to," said Harry, just above a whisper.

Draco reached for his wand and concentrated on lighting a candle. As soon as it was lit, Harry charmed them back to darkness. Draco's eyes ached from the dramatic changes in lighting, which made his head throb again. He reached to the back of his head and felt the healing lesion and winced. 

"I can't stand to see what I did to you. It's not your fault. I never... wanted to be someone who... and yet... I did it anyway. I'm... I'm really sorry."

It was frustrating only being able to communicate in gestures Harry wouldn't see well and sighs. He wanted to tell Harry that he'd needed the fight, too. That he'd goaded it because he'd wanted to fight, and that he knew from the start he wasn't likely to win. He'd just been so desperate to vent. 

Scooting back on the bed, he patted the spot next to him. 

He was just starting to feel rejected when he heard the scrape of the chair on the floor and soft footfalls. Draco closed his eyes and tucked his hand under his cheek. His body shifted as the mattress bent under Harry's weight and then some wriggling that set his head to hammering again as Harry made himself comfortable. 

Draco wasn't sure if he could bear to see what he'd done to Harry. The memory of the hard scratch on his cheek and the many times he'd punched Harry in the face hung vividly in the darkness behind his eyelids. 

Drawing in a long breath, Draco opened his eyes to see Harry's face un-bruised, but there was a long, narrow stripe of scar next to his nose. It was hard to see the size in the tenebrous room, but he felt satisfaction that he'd left a mark on Harry. He assumed Harry had wanted it, flesh wounds were easy enough to heal by magic and they rarely left scars. 

He traced his finger along it, considering it and what it meant that Harry had wanted it. 

"Every time I look in the mirror, it reminds me of what happens if I lose control."

Drawing off of the line of the scar, Draco brushed his fingertips over Harry's lips and felt a thrill flare in his belly at Harry's lips pursing to kiss them. He brought his thumb over them, and when he reached the center he dipped his thumb into Harry's mouth. His breath caught as Harry's teeth parted and flicked his tongue at it.

He pulled his thumb from Harry's mouth and slicked the moisture along his bottom lip. Draco's pulse raced at Harry's short breaths against his hand. 

"Do you really love me, Malfoy?"

Of all the times where only being able to answer "yes" and "no" could be frustrating, this was now officially at the top of his list. He'd said it. Or mouthed it. He'd no idea that was truly how he felt until he thought he might die. Only then did he feel able to say such a thing. 

Even with full power of speech, Draco had no idea how he'd answer. He'd probably equivocate. Now that he couldn't, he was left with the black and white unless he wanted to shrug. But even that could be taken in ways he didn't intend.

He gazed into Harry's eyes for a moment, considering how he truly wanted to answer. It wasn't that he didn't believe that he did think he loved Harry, but he wasn't sure if he was qualified to make the assessment. 

But then, if not he, then whom?

With much trepidation, Draco nodded. 

"You don't hate me for almost killing you?"

Draco lamented the lack of a gesture for _apparently not_. 

"You seemed pretty into it. The fighting part, not the dying part."

_I was into all of it, Harry_ , Draco thought. But his fatalistic streak was fading fast as Harry reached for him and pulled him closer. Draco nodded his response. 

"I thought I'd killed you for real this time."

_Oh it would've been real enough the first time had Snape not shown up._

"Remus came over and helped."

_You let a werewolf touch me? If I get furry by the full moon, so help me..._

Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like that. I had to get someone and he knows a lot."

Draco was well pleased that Harry seemed to understand him now. Perhaps he should've tried not talking sooner. 

"Look, I know... I know you know I blamed you for what happened with Ginny. It was wrong, I know. I blamed myself, too. It's just... what we were doing and... I wasn't... I felt guilty."

At that, Draco gave an enthusiastic nod so that Harry would know that he'd felt the same way. 

Harry grinned. "We should've tried having you not talk sooner."

Draco grinned back and stroked Harry's new scar gently, gazing at it as if it were a portal to their new understanding. 

It was gratifying when Harry leaned into the touch and didn't look uneasy. 

"I thought it was my fault you were captured and I just... it was all so unreal and then Ginny and... well, this time I nearly lost you for good and by my own hands." 

Harry gave Draco an imploring look, but Draco had no idea what to say to that. He gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. "Look, I don't know what I'm doing and I can't promise anything, because clearly I'm not any good at relationships, but I'm not going to push this away again. I want to try."

Those were words Draco had wanted to hear and now he was gesture-less, aside from a beaming grin.

"Do you want to try?"

Draco adored the anxious look on Harry's face, and after everything that had transpired, he couldn't see the wrong in making him sweat it a little; especially since he was working so hard to ignore the grin. Finally, he nodded and Harry pulled into a kiss so consuming and open that it curled Draco's toes.


	5. Epilogue

The leather pinched tight around his throat and Draco groaned at the pop of his spine at the knee digging into his back. His eyes widened for a moment and then he looked over his shoulder at Harry's determined face, concentrated watching Draco's body, looking for signals. Their eyes met before Draco closed his eyes, a well-practiced signal of submission and readiness. 

Harry's fingers were slick and warm at his opening, prodding him as the belt went slack while Harry repositioned. Two fingers, then three as he pulled the belt tight again-- cutting off Draco's air supply, leaving him in that exhilarating state of arousal and inability to breathe. It was just enough to get him hard, to make Draco touch himself, but not so intimidating that he was actually afraid.

Some might've thought that this kind of punishment was cruel given all that Draco had been through, but he found catharsis in it. Beyond the pain or the headiness of an asphyxiated orgasm, he trusted Harry this much-- trusted that he would do this to him and always stop when he needed him to. 

The weight on the bed shifted, giving Draco a momentary feeling of vertigo as Harry moved off of him and then grabbed his thigh, giving it a gentle nudge for Draco to turn over. 

Draco smiled. 

Moments like this were why he loved Harry, why he knew that no matter how rough or experimental they got, that he would always trust him.

When Draco turned over, he saw the slight strain on Harry's face, the expression he wore when he thought he was being stoic, but his eyes gave everything away. He knew that while Harry took some pleasure in doing these things to Draco-- mostly because of how much Draco enjoyed them-- that it worried his conscience at times.

The belt hung loose around Draco's neck and he wrapped his arms around Harry to kiss him as reassurance, to let him know that he understood that he wasn't angry or impatient for Harry's moment of uncertainty. Draco knew what Harry had seen, knew how it scared him and knew that sometimes the taboo of what they did-- what Draco felt he needed now-- was more than Harry could bear. 

Tangling his legs around Harry's waist, he met the hard thrust that connected their bodies. Harry was inside of him now, the invasion harsh and always slightly uncomfortable no matter what their position. 

It was the connection that made it worth it. The feeling of Harry fitting inside of him, and the blissful look on Harry's face; nothing could touch Harry here. Everything was perfect, warm and safe. Draco loved that he could provide that back to him. 

Draco clutched Harry's back, meeting each thrust with a quiet grunt as Harry took up the end of the belt again. He gazed lovingly at Draco's face, his mouth fixed in a slight sneer from the effort, but softened with affection. Slipping a hand between them, Draco pulled on himself as he felt the belt constricting his airflow, but kept his eyes open, fixed on Harry's face.

There was nothing in the world but Harry. Not breathing. Not the bed. Not the whole of the Wizarding world; just Harry inside of him, Harry controlling his breathing, Harry needing him, needing to be just where he was and being willing to do anything for him. 

First Harry cried out, his body stopping in deep thrust as he released. His eyes clamped shut and furrowed brow, still he looked like an angel dripping with sweat, mouth open in gasping need. Then he started to move again, milking the last of his release free as he twisted the belt over the back of his hand, eyes cut like slits, clocking Draco, calculating, measuring whether he could continue to restrict his air.

Coming like this was like time suspended. He could count seconds between the long ropes of come that slapped back down against his abdomen, coating the pale sweat with his release. Everything went black around the edges, tunneling in, giving him focus on Harry's face that went from bliss to concern before the belt loosed and Draco was breathing again. Each hard gasp sliced through his lungs, burned his already heated body, making it tingle in relief and extraordinarily sensitive to touch. 

Pulling the belt away seemed to always be Harry's favorite part, and he leaned in to kiss over the chafe marks, nuzzling his throat tenderly. 

"I love you, Draco." His voice took on that soft, worshipful tone that both flattered and embarrassed Draco. 

Draco tensed his body and then relaxed, nerves still rattled from the oxygen deprivation. He licked his lips and pulled Harry's face up so he could gaze into his eyes. 

"I love you, too, Harry."

Maybe it wasn't the perfect kind of love that some people idealized with two perfect people doing perfect things and living in perfect bliss, but Draco loved that they were both broken and loved even more that in their brokenness, they somehow fit. Harry's crags gave Draco something to cling to and Harry had someone in constant need of rescue. 

It wasn't ideal, but it was right.


End file.
